Macaulay Culkin has been famous for longer than he can remember. But after starring in early ‘90s classics such as Home Alone, My Girl and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York as a child, the actor took a break from the spotlight, during which he made headlines for his occasionally eccentric behavior.
“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,” the 39-year-old said in his March 2020 Esquire cover story, published on Tuesday, February 11.
“It’s also like, OK, everybody, stop acting so freaking shocked that I’m relatively well-adjusted,” he continued. “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.”
Culkin started making headlines for his personal life as a teenager, when he legally removed his parents’ names from his trust fund and hired an executor to look over his multimillion-dollar finances instead.
“It’s always misconstrued, that I ‘emancipated’ myself from my parents,” he told Esquire. “The story was that I divorced my parents. I just thought I was doing it cleanly — taking my father’s name off, taking my mom’s name off, so my opinion is unbiased. And when I did that, the whole thing kinda ended a lot faster.”
The Golden Globe nominee also started dabbling in drugs years ago, although he clarified that he never had a “problem” or misused them.
“I played with some fire, I guess is the best way to put it. At the same time, I’ve never been to rehab or anything like that. I’ve never had to clean out that way,” he noted to the magazine. “There were certain times when I had to catch myself, once or twice. ‘You’re having too good a time, Mack.’ … But I never went so far down that road where I needed outside help.”
That said, Culkin does not regret experimenting with substances. (To this day, he still smokes cigarettes and drinks alcohol; the Esquire profile noted that he did both during the interview.)
“I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I hadn’t had drugs in my life at some point or another,” he admitted. “I had some illuminating experiences — but also it’s f–kin’ stupid, too, you know? So besides the occasional muscle relaxer, no, I don’t do drugs recreationally. I still kinda drink like a fish. I drink and I smoke. But I don’t touch the things. I do love them. They’re like old friends. But sometimes you outgrow your friends.”
