Macaulay Culkin, who became one of the most famed child stars of all time thanks to leading roles in classics like Home Alone, has a candid message f
Macaulay Culkin, who became one of the most famed child stars of all time thanks to leading roles in classics like Home Alone, has a candid message for those making documentaries about people like him.
On Monday, the same night that Investigation Discovery aired an episode of its ongoing series Hollywood Demons, titled “Child Stars Gone Violent,” the 44-year-old actor took to Instagram with some thoughts. “Dear ID,” Culkin wrote alongside a photo of the network’s logo. “Please take it easy on the kiddos. We’ve all been through the wringer. No one wants to feel exploited. Don’t pile on. Love, Macaulay Culkin.” (Vanity Fair has reached out to Investigation Discovery for comment.)
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According to a description from ID, the episode details how, for some child stars, “the transition out of the spotlight dragged them down a path of crime, addiction, and violence.” It features interviews with former child actors Brian Bonsall (Family Ties) and Dee Jay Daniels (The Hughleys), as well as Home Improvement and That’s So Raven producers who “reveal their brush with young stars who ended up behind bars.”
Last year, ID received two Emmy nominations for its bombshell series Quiet on Set, which exposed alleged misconduct at the kids TV network Nickelodeon. Although the series was praised for allowing former child performers a platform on which to share their stories, it was also criticized for veering into what some deemed “trauma porn” territory. “One of the key things of our series is about giving survivors agency and empowering them to use their voice—when and how they’re ready to do it,” ID executive Jason Sarlanis told Vanity Fair shortly after the project’s release.
After the breakout success of 1990’s Home Alone and 1991’s My Girl, Culkin starred in a string of hit movies before halting his career in 1994. “He had, somehow, the wisdom and self-preservation at the age of 14 or something to say ‘stop,’” Catherine O’Hara, who played his onscreen mother in Home Alone, told Variety before his Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony in December 2023. “He chose to allow himself a life outside of the work, and he’s been making his own choices since.”
Around that time, Culkin’s parents separated, resulting in a custody battle over him and his six siblings. He has been estranged from his father and former manager, Christopher “Kit” Culkin, ever since. “Oh, 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,” Culkin shared on the March 31 episode of the Sibling Revelry podcast with Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson.
His younger brother, Succession star and recent Oscar winner Kieran Culkin, also recently alluded to having a strained relationship with their father. During the 2024 Emmy Awards, Kieran told reporters, “[My mom is] just an absolutely wonderful woman who took on raising seven kids in a studio apartment by herself. There was a guy there—he didn’t do anything.”
Macaulay shares two children—Dakota and Carson, now three and two years ancient respectively—with his fiancée, Brenda Song, who herself is a former child actor. “It’s one of my earliest memories of him was [thinking], When I grew up, this is how I’m not gonna be with my kids,” Culkin told the Hudson siblings, adding that he is now “probably in the best place of my entire life.”
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