The Truth About Macaulay Culkin

Macaulay Culkin is one of the most fascinating actors in history. He achieved mega-fame at a young age with Home Alone and Home Alone 2, turning him into a bona fide child star. But his immense success often came at the expense of his personal happiness.

In fact, Culkin’s life has been marked with family tragedies, serious romantic drama, and the occasional clarification that he is not dead (no matter what the internet says). With respect to Culkin, we’re pretty sure that the story of his actual life is more interesting and engaging than any of his onscreen adventures.

To help prove it, we did a deep dive into this actor’s life. Here is the truth about Macaulay Culkin. Just make sure that reading it doesn’t cause you to leave a kid at home during your holiday vacation!

A humble upbringing

Famous Hollywood actors often come from rich and privileged backgrounds. Some are even Hollywood royalty, with generations of experience on the big screen.

That wasn’t the case with Macaulay Culkin, though. His family was thoroughly middle class, and his parents had no special Hollywood connections. In fact, Culkin originally went into acting hoping to become successful and financially help his family out.

While they had no history with Hollywood, acting certainly seems to be in their genes. Macaulay’s brothers Kieran and Rory went in to star in their own major Hollywood films.

An interesting financial history

Home Alone was an instant and iconic hit, ultimately grossing nearly $500 million according to Box Office Mojo. Because of this, some Culkin fans were shocked to learn that he only earned $100,000 for that movie.

However, its success gave him leverage in negotiating for future roles. Eventually, he was making around $8 million per movie. Not that he knew all the details, though!

At the time, Culkin’s father Kit served as his manager. He helped Macaulay land some major roles, but he also drove many producers and other filmmakers up the wall with his meddling. And both mom and dad tried to hide Maucalay’s money from him in an attempt to give him a more normal childhood.

But in the case of his father, there may have been a darker motivation at play.