Macaulay Culkin is opening up about his relationship — or lack thereof — with his father.
The Hollywood icon appeared on Kate and Oliver Hudson’s Sibling Revelry podcast on Monday and got extremely candid about his fractured relationship with his dad Christopher “Kit” Culkin. How bad is it? Mac hasn’t spoken to his dad in 30 years! He said:
“One of my earliest memories of him was [thinking] when I grew up, this is how I’m not gonna be with my kids.”
Macaulay now shares two sons with fiancée Brenda Song — Dakota, 3, and Carson, 2. He’s a TERRIFIC dad, we hear — and it just makes him reflect even more on how his own father went so wrong:
“Now that I have kids of my own, it’s like, you know, it kicks up some dust. I kinda go, you know, like, ‘I can’t believe he was like that.’ He had all these lovely kids. And talented kids, too. It’s crazy.”
Damn. He’s not wrong about that. His brother Kieran Culkin found his big breakout role a couple years ago with Succession — and just won the damn Oscar and every other award for A Real Pain. And Rory Culkin is a successful actor doing some great indie work as well!
Mac, now 44 (!!!), hasn’t spoken to his dad since he was a teenager — but noted one of his older siblings “had some contact with him at one point, but I think that turned sour pretty fast again.” Now none of them speak to him:
“He deserves it, too. He’s a man who, he had seven kids, and now he has four grandkids. And none of them want anything to do with him.”
He added if he was in that position he’d assume, “I must have done something wrong” — but he doesn’t believe his dad thinks that at all:
“I have more than an inkling that he does not feel that way. Like we’re wrong and he’s right. He’s one of those narcissistic people.”
That’s really, really hard.
Luckily, the Home Alone star still has a relationship with his momma Patricia Brentrup — who had to fight for him in a nasty custody battle with Kit. That was even though Mac “wanted nothing to do with” his dad:
“He was just the worst. The judge was like, well, you have to do visitations with him. I told my lawyer, ‘Yeah, I’m not doing that.’ He said, ‘Well, you’ll be in contempt of court’ and this and that.”
But he did NOT accept that. Describing his child-self as a “smartass,”, he recalled telling his lawyer at the time:
“Well, how about this? I dare the judge to put me in jail for ‘not wanting to visit his abusive father.’ I actually had to double down on that. ‘I double dare him to arrest the most famous kid in the world.’ I never played that card, but that was the one time I played that card.”
Ha!
As for why his relationship deteriorated with his father at an early age, the Changeland actor said he believes “resentment” plays a big role:
“He had a certain amount of resentment towards me, I think is what it was. Because he wanted to be an actor, and he kind of did some stuff. He literally got as far as like Horus on Broadway, you know, and then he did some ballet, too. So then all of a sudden, he has this kid that didn’t look anything like him, to be honest; I look a lot like my mother. And I, right out of the bat, like, I instantly got the lead stuff in the ballet company. I instantly booked all these things like that. And I think he resented me for that. I think he kind of hated me a little bit for that, and so I think that’s why he kind of was a little bit harsh with me.”
That’s so awful. He was just a child! Parents are supposed to raise up their kids! Not tear them down. And be ecstatic about their success!
Macaulay went on to claim his father physically and verbally abused him… but that he used the negativity as a way to shape his own parenting strategy and to drive his success:
“It sucks, but it makes me the man I am today. Yeah, I wouldn’t be the man. I wouldn’t be the father I am today if it wasn’t for my experiences, you know … And again, at the end of the day, I was like, ‘I’m going to win.’ Yeah, I’m on your show. So clearly I’m a winner.”
You can listen to his full podcast episode (below):
Our hearts go out to Mac!
If you have sincere cause to suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org
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