Macaulay Culkin Says 'He 'Didn't Know How Weird' His Life as a Child Actor Was Until He Got Older
- - Macaulay Culkin Says 'He 'Didn't Know How Weird' His Life as a Child Actor Was Until He Got Older
Virginia ChamleeDecember 26, 2025 at 7:53 PM
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Macaulay Culkin, Kieran Culkin -
Macaulay Culkin says life as a child actor was "weird" — but he didn't realize it until years later
Speaking on a new episode of Mythical Kitchen, Culkin said, "I knew that what I was doing was different than other kids"
"For me, I didn't know how weird my life was until I got older and got away from it," he added
Macaulay Culkin is opening up about how "weird" life was as a hyper-successful child actor.
Speaking on a new episode of Mythical Kitchen, Culkin, 45, said, "I knew that what I was doing was different than other kids. For me, I didn't know how weird my life was until I got older and got away from it."
Elsewhere in the conversation, the actor said, "After a while, you actually come up with the vocabulary — the actual vocabulary, the emotional vocabulary – to figure out how this all shook out."
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Macaulay was born to parents Christopher Cornelius "Kit" Culkin and Patricia Brentrup. In addition to Macaulay, the parents also shared kids Kieran, Rory, Dakota, who died at 29 in 2008, Quinn, Shane, Christian and Jennifer.
The child actors had a challenging upbringing, as they became estranged from Kit after he and Brentrup separated in 1995 amid Macaulay's rising fame as a child star.
Speaking on the Monday, March 31 episode of the Sibling Revelry podcast with Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson, the actor said that one of the earliest memories of his father was thinking, "‘When I grew up, this is how I'm not gonna be with my kids."
Culkin added: “Now that I have kids of my own, it's like, you know, it kicks up some dust. I kinda go, you know, like, I can't believe he was like that. He had all these lovely kids. It's crazy.”
Sharing that he hasn’t spoken to his own father in about 30 years, Culkin said of the estrangement, “Oh, he deserves it too. Yeah. He's a man who, he had seven kids, and now he has four grandkids. Yeah, and none of them want anything to do with him.”
Culkin, who shares sons, Dakota, almost 4, and Carson, 2, with his fiancée Brenda Song, ultimately took a hiatus from the industry at age 14 after starring in Richie Rich in 1994. He returned to acting with the biographical drama film Party Monster in 2003.
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Source: “AOL Entertainment”
