Macaulay Culkin has opened up about why he legally removed both parents from his $50 million childhood earnings trust.
Culkin, 46, who shot to global fame as nine-year-old Kevin McCallister in 1990’s Home Alone, earned $110,000 for the first film and substantially more for its 1992 sequel. His early 1990s run continued with My Girl in 1991 and The Good Son in 1993, building a fortune that was placed in a trust fund controlled by his parents.
The actor revealed in an Esquire interview that the move came during his parents’ separation, when his mother Patricia Brentrup was hemorrhaging money on legal fees while the family faced eviction. Culkin’s parents, Kit Culkin and Brentrup, were never married, and their custody battle over Macaulay and his siblings including Kieran Culkin dragged on while rent went unpaid.
Culkin explained the practical reality that drove his decision: “Basically, I had millions and millions of dollars in the bank and my mother couldn’t pay the rent because she was spending all of her money on lawyers. We were about to get evicted from our apartment. The only way I could get access to that money was to take my father’s name off it, but I didn’t want to make it messy, so I figured I’d take both their names off.”
The Home Alone star has spent decades correcting the narrative that followed. Media reports at the time framed the maneuver as Culkin “divorcing” or “emancipating” himself from his parents, a characterization he has repeatedly rejected. He told Esquire: “It’s always misconstrued, that I ’emancipated’ myself from my parents. I legally took my parents’ names off of my trust fund and found an executor, someone who would look over my finances, just in case anyone wanted to stick their f–king pinkie in the pie.”
He continued: “But the next thing you know, the story was that I divorced my parents. I just thought I was doing it cleanly – taking my father’s name off, taking my mom’s name off, so my opinion is unbiased. And when I did that, the whole thing kinda ended a lot faster.”
The actor also addressed the custody dynamic during that period, noting that he and his siblings “didn’t want to go with my father.” By removing both parents from the trust and appointing a financial executor, Culkin said he was able to resolve the money disputes more quickly while maintaining neutrality in the family conflict.
In the viral moment that cemented his place in pop culture history, young Culkin’s slapstick performance in Home Alone turned him into one of the most recognizable child stars ever, with paychecks that grew far beyond that initial $110,000. The trust fund controversy emerged years later as part of the darker industry narrative around child actors and parental control of earnings, a topic that has gained renewed attention with recent legal actions by other celebrity children including Vivian Wilson, Elon Musk’s daughter.
Culkin has not spoken to his father Kit for approximately 30 years, according to reports. He has since rebuilt his career with voice roles including Cattrick Lynxley in Zootropolis 2 and Lacerta Legate in the second season of Amazon’s Fallout series, plus cameos in Netflix’s Running Point alongside wife Brenda Song. The couple met on the set of Changeland and have two children together.