EXCLUSIVE: Macaulay Culkin's Childhood Pain Exposed in His Searing Words — 'My Father Resented Me'
Macaulay Culkin opened up about his dark and painful childhood.
April 18 2025, Published 4:30 p.m. ET
Macaulay Culkin has dug deeper into the emotional and physical abuse he received from his "narcissistic" father, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
The former child star has not seen his dad in more than 30 years, and has no desire to reunite anytime soon.
Macaulay said his father was jealous of his childhood success.
Before fame, Macaulay, younger brother Kieran and their five siblings all lived together with parents Kit and Patricia in a tiny apartment in New York City.
Their parents ended up meeting a stage manager at Ensemble Studio Theater, and they were later introduced to casting director Billy Hopkins, who gave Macaulay his first role at 6 years old in the 1988 drama Rocket Gibraltar.
Fame would soon follow. However, the Home Alone star said so would the abuse.
Speaking on Oliver and Kate Hudson’s Sibling Revelry podcast, the 44-year-old explained: "I would take his whoopings and stuff like that. But the whole time I was sitting there thinking, 'Oh, I’m gonna win in the end.'"
Macaulay has found love with Brenda Song.
Macaulay revealed Kit treated him badly because the patriarch was jealous of his success as an actor.
"The thing is, he had a certain amount of resentment towards me, I think is what it was," he continued.
Sources claimed Kit never allowed his hardworking sons a break – and earned a rep as a Hollywood bully who tried to wrestle creative control of their movies from studio executives.
After their parents divorce, the Culkin kids did not want to go with their father. Macaulay filed a legal request to erase Kit and Brentrup's names from his trust fund and appointed an executor to manage his finances.
The fed-up star would quit acting at 14 because of his tense relationship with his dad — and two years later became emancipated from both parents.
The couple have gone on to start a family of their own.
Since then, Macaulay has completely his dad out of his life with no regrets.
"I haven’t spoken to him in, what would it be, about thirtysomething years?" he said on the podcast. "He deserves it, too. He’s a man who — he has seven kids, and now he has four grandkids, and none of them want anything to do with him."
Macaulay has since gone on to start a family of his own, welcoming sons Dakota, 3, and Carson, 2, with fiancée Brenda Song. But a family reunion remains a slim possibility.
He revealed: "Now that I have kids of my own, it kicks up some dust. I kinda go, 'I can’t believe he was like that. He had all these lovely kids. It’s crazy.'"
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Friends of the Culkin family insist there is no love lost for their absentee father.
"People in Macaulay’s life say to him it would be nice to give Kit one more visit. But Macaulay won’t and says that chapter is closed" said the source.
They added: "He’s already said what he wanted to about his rotten childhood and how his dad tormented him and made him work nonstop until he cut away from both his parents.
"He says his dad is not a good person and he doesn’t want him anywhere near his kid!"
