Macaulay Culkin describes himself as peerless and I’m inclined to agree.
There is maybe a handful of people in history who have ever achieved his level of fame at such a young age and lived to tell the tale.
On August 26, big Mack turns the big 4-0! Help us celebrate and check out these 10+ random facts about Macaulay Culkin that fans didn’t know!
Macaulay Culkin is one of the most famous people in the world, despite the fact that he isn’t in tons of current blockbusters.
He starred in the cult classic Home Alone series, which brought him all the fame he needed.
But there is still a ton that people don’t know about him, and this list will help with that. Let’s get into it!
1. He used to play in a Velvet Underground-tribute band called Pizza Underground.
Calling them a tribute band might be a bit of a stretch. Basically, the group played Velvet Underground covers and replaced the lyrics with ” pizza .”
I honestly don’t know how to react to this.
2. He has seven brothers and sisters!
During an appearance on The Ellen Show , Mack joked that his mother “Didn’t have a family, she had a litter .”
He said that they were a close-knit family — mostly because he and his siblings were stacked on top of one another.
3. He appeared on *Saturday Night Live* when he was only 11 years old!
Can you imagine how nerve-racking that must have been? What’s worse is that Culkin’s father wouldn’t allow him to use cue cards.
He was forced to memorize every single piece of dialogue — even for skits that didn’t make it into the show!
4. Yes, he does watch *Home Alone* during the holidays.
At the very least, he’s been known to indulge.
Mack told Jimmy Fallon a story of how, when he first began dating his girlfriend, he did it as a way to impress her.
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5. Mack is Paris Jackson’s godfather.
Paris is Michael’s only daughter. Mack has often said how protective he feels of her and that she is beloved by him.
Paris was only 11 years old at the time of her father’s death.
6. He wants to set the record straight when it comes to the rumors surrounding his drug addiction.
As Culkin told The Guardian ,
“I was not pounding six grand of heroin every month or whatever. The thing that bugged me was tabloids wrapping it all in this weird guise of concern.”
7. He was mentally and physically abused by his father.
Mack was forced into acting by his jealous and abusive father.
During an appearance on the WTF podcast, the former child star admitted that his father threatened to beat him if he didn’t perform well.
This eventually led him to sue his parents — and he won!
Culkin sued for $17 million when he was 15 years old.
He emancipated himself from his parents and, for a period of time, quit acting altogether.
8. Mack had a very peculiar friendship with Michael Jackson.
The pair first met while shooting the music video for “Black or White.”
Rumors swirled that Culkin may have been sexually abused by the former King of Pop but he denies all allegations to this day.
9. Mack got into a war of t-shirts with Ryan Gosling.
It all started when a photo surfaced of Ryan Gosling wearing a t-shirt of Mack on the cover of LIFE magazine.
After seeing this, Mack made a shirt of Ryan Gosling wearing his Macaulay Culkin shirt. How meta is that?!
10. Mack trained as a ballet dancer.
A lot of people don’t know that Mack was dancing before he began acting. If you want to see his talents on full display, check out The Nutcracker this holiday season.
Bonus points if you can stay awake for longer than 25 minutes.
11. He ran a contest where fans could vote to legally change his middle name.
The winner by a landslide was “Macaulay Culkin.”
That means that his legal name is Macaulay Macaulay Culkin Culkin. That is seriously the greatest thing ever.
12. Mack’s an author!
“Junior” is a semi-autobiographical work of fiction. Many critics were quick to point out his original voice and unflinching honesty.
Like many of Mack’s passion projects, the book was met with equal amounts of praise and disdain.
13. Mack started his own podcast!
It’s called The Bunny Ears Podcast . The way that Mack described the pod to Jimmy Fallon was ” Goop meets The Onion .”
I myself have even been known to listen to the odd episode. Mack’s got serious skills when it comes to hosting.
14. According to Mack, there’s one rumor about himself that he always gets a kick out of.
During an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon , Mack said that he used to think it was funny when he’d read in the paper about how he was supposedly dead .
15. He enjoys being on set, but not necessarily everything else that comes along with being an actor.
“No, it’s true. It’s just—I enjoy acting. I enjoy being on set,” he said to Esquire . “I don’t enjoy a lot of the other things that come around it. What’s a good analogy. The Shawshank Redemption .”
“The way he gets out of prison is to crawl through a tube of [expletive], you know? It feels like to get to that kind of freedom, I’d have to crawl through a tube of [expletive]. And you know what?”
“I’ve built a really nice prison for myself. It’s soft. It’s sweet. It smells nice. You know? It’s plush.”
“Look: I’m a pretty peerless person. If I was an accountant, I could look left and right, and there’s other accountants sitting next to me in the office. It’s not like that. It’s one of those things where, like, the cliché that we’re all snowflakes?”
“That we’re all unique? Well, you know what? I actually am a snowflake.”
17. He didn’t mind all the attention as a child.
He knew he was good at his job, and it was what he wanted out of his life, so getting all the attention was right in line with what he wanted (at the time).
It seems that now, as an adult, things have changed.
16. He also admitted to *Esquire* that he knows people think he is crazy.
“People assume that I’m crazy, or a kook, or damaged. Weird. Cracked. And up until the last year or two, I haven’t really put myself out there at all. So I can understand that. It’s also like, Okay, everybody, stop acting so freaking shocked that I’m relatively well-adjusted.”
19. He has quite a few pets!
He has two cats, Apples and Dude, a fish named Cinnamon, a bird named Nacho (but Macaulay calls Macho), and a Shiba Inu.
That sounds like a lot of work if you ask me!
18. While he knows he had a bad childhood, he also acknowledges that it could have been a lot worse.
In fact, he has admitted that he doesn’t think it was all bad.
He leads a very good life now, and, although the healing process took some time, he believes he is exactly where he needs to be!
22. He and Michael Jackson actually used to prank call people!
Imagine a world where you are prank-called by Michael Jackson and Macaulay Culkin?
How wild would that be? But it’s true! They used to do this back when Culkin used to hang around at Neverland.
23. He and Paris Jackson have matching spoon tattoos up their sleeves for a reason.
His advice to her, he said to Esquire , was:
“Don’t forget to be silly, don’t forget to take something away from this whole experience, and don’t forget to stick something up your sleeve.”
20. He is into playing video games.
Between playing video games, watching YouTube, and watching reality television, he has been keeping busy! Or at least, as busy as he can be during the quarantine.
He said that he is currently playing WrestleMania 2000 .
21. His current girlfriend, Brenda Song, has only beautiful things to say about him.
“People don’t realize how incredibly kind and loyal and sweet and smart he is,” Brenda told Esquire . “Truly what makes Mack so special is that he is so unapologetically Mack. He knows who he is, and he’s 100 percent okay with that. And that to me is an incredibly sexy quality. He’s worked really hard to be the person he is.”
She also said: “I truly believe that he is the actor he is now because of all the things he had to go through.”
“He has gone through so much tragedy; he’s had so many ups, so many downs; he’s seen the ugly side of this industry; he’s also seen the amazing side of this industry. So he can pinpoint exactly what he doesn’t want and what he doesn’t like about it. But yeah, I hope, I hope, I hope.”
Do you know any other random and interesting facts about Macaulay Culkin?
Or were you pleasantly surprised by the facts we presented you with?
Either way, let us know down below in the comment section! We would love to hear from you!
