Tragedy in the life of Macaulay Culkin

In Hollywood, quite a few tragic stories go beyond the stage or screen. Life for famous actors and actresses is often not as easy as it may seem to us. This is the case for Macaulay Culkin.

Born in New York in 1980, Macaulay Culkin had a lot of fame and success, but he suffered a childhood that was far removed from that of a Hollywood star.

Macaulay Culkin was born into a large family: his father, Kit; his mother, Patricia; and six other siblings. As a result, they often struggled financially. Until Kit, who had tried to make it as an actor in the past, decided to push his children into the world of acting and try to make his dream come true through his offspring.

That's why, at the age of four, Macaulay Culkin began acting in theatrical productions, attracting the attention of critics and producers, and went on to work on more ambitious projects such as the film 'Rocket Gibraltar' (1988), directed by John Hughes.

John Hughes was captivated by the talent of the camera-eating blond boy. He then subsequently wrote the screenplay for the 1990 film 'Home Alone', which became one of the most successful films of the 1990s.

It also served as a springboard to fame for good old Macaulay Culkin, who was still just a kid when his life and career was tightly controlled by his overbearing father.

Macaulay Culkin received awards and accolades (he was even nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actor - Comedy or Musical) and his CV got longer and longer, making him one of the highest paid kids in Hollywood history. But it was his controlling father who was behind it all.

Other roles followed, such as 'My Girl', for which he received a million dollars. He went on to host 'Saturday Night Live' when he was only 11 years old and, in 1993, Premiere magazine included the actor in the list of the 50 most powerful people in Hollywood. But his career began to decline, with Kit Culkin being largely responsible for brawls with production companies. Worse still, the jealousy of his own son led him to abuse him both physically and mentally.

"[He said] 'Do good or I'll hit you.' He was a bad man. He was abusive, physically and mentally — I can show you all my scars if I wanted to," Macaulay Culkin said in 2008 in an interview for Marc Maron's podcast. "Everything he tried to do in life I accomplished before I was 10," he said of his father.

And then came the box-office flops with films like 'The Nutcracker' and 'Richie Rich', released in 1993 and 1994 respectively. And it was in 1994 when he decided to retire from acting, tired of being the instrument of others.

"I was making God-knows-how-much money, and Kit was making me sleep on the couch, just because he could," he said. "Just to let you know who's in charge and just to let you know if he doesn't want you to sleep in a bed, you're not going to sleep in a bed," E! News reported.

Macaulay Culkin's retirement coincided with the separation of his parents, who began a legal battle in court over custody of the children. At stake was access to and control of Macaulay's fortune. But the young actor managed to wrest access to his trust fund from his parents and was emancipated from his parents before he came of age.

For a while he stopped acting and didn't work as an actor again until 'Party Monster' (2003). He dedicated himself to living the quiet life he craved and relied on friends like Michael Jackson, with whom he had worked on the music video for the song 'Black or White'. He had also spent time at his 'Neverland' ranch, although always maintained that his relationship with the singer had nothing to do with the abuses of which he was later accused.

But on a personal level, those years were not easy either, as his addiction to certain illegal substances put him through hell (he was arrested in 2004 for possession).

He also had to survive a divorce (he had married actress Rachel Miner in 1998, and they separated two years later). Then came the death of his half-sister Jennifer Adamson from overdose.

His addiction problems also ended the relationship he had started in 2002 with actress Mila Kunis, who he dated until 2010.

The figure of Macaulay Culkin continued to blur as he tried to hold on to what was left of that massive fame of the nineties with small roles in which he mostly parodied himself.

He even formed a band, The Pizza Underground, which pays homage, in its own way, to The Velvet Underground, covering songs with pizza-related themes. But things didn't end so well (in May 2014 in Nottingham the audience booed the band and started throwing pints of beer at them), so in 2018 they disbanded.

In recent years, though, he has once again won the affection of fans and critical acclaim for his performance in the tenth season of Ryan Murphy's 'American Horror Story' (2021).

A good professional moment that also coincided with one he began to experience on a personal level with actress Brenda Song, with whom he has two children: Dakota (who was born in April 2021 and is named after another of the actor's deceased sisters, run over in 2008 in Los Angeles) and Carson, born at the end of 2022.

In December 2023, Macaulay Culkin received his Hollywood star of fame. And yet, after this rollercoaster life, do you think it came at too high a cost?

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