Macaulay Culkin has spoken about the distressing incident that led him to contact the police about his father.
The Home Alone actor engaged in a deeply revealing conversation with Barbara Walters on ABC’s 20/20 in 2000, where he discussed the challenges of his early life.
Culkin rose to international stardom due to his performance in the beloved holiday film, becoming one of the most renowned child actors ever.
However, his personal life was tumultuous, marked by a strained relationship with his father, Kit Culkin.
Culkin has been transparent about his interactions with his father, including an interview where he shared that he once reported his father to the authorities at their home.
Walters questioned Culkin: “Your mother said your father was drunk and abusive?”
Culkin candidly responded: “Yeah, definitely.”
He elaborated: “I went off somewhere for the weekend, and I didn’t tell him, and he got angry with me and gave me a nice swipe across the cheek.
“I just went down, and then he told me to get up, ‘get up’. I looked at him and I was like I’m not gonna fight you, because I knew that’s what he wanted me to do.”
Culkin continued: “He gave me another one, and my brother walked into the apartment or something like that, and I just said like eff you, I closed my door and locked it, called the cops on him.”
Explaining his decision to contact the authorities, Culkin stated: “I just wanted him to know that I wasn’t going to let him get away with those kind of things anymore.”
Following a prolific career in childhood roles such as Uncle Buck, Richie Rich, and Home Alone, Culkin withdrew from acting at the age of 14.
During his teenage years, Culkin became involved in a legal dispute with his parents over the $50 million earnings from his film career.
In a 2020 interview with Esquire, he explained: “We didn’t want to go with my father. 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***ing pinkie in the pie.”
This situation unfolded as his parents, who had never wed, were engaged in a custody fight over him and his siblings.
Culkin has acknowledged the difficulty of handling the fame he encountered at such a young age.