Macaulay Culkin Speaks out on ‘Normal Friendship’ With Michael Jackson

Macaulay Culkin understands why people may be skeptical of his friendship with the late Michael Jackson, but he says it was pretty normal.

The former child star appeared on a recent episode of the Inside of You With Michael Rosenbaum podcast, where he talked about the King of Pop and how he took Culkin under his wing when he was a child.

Joking that Rosenbaum “ambushed” him at the end of the podcast with a question about Jackson, Culkin recalled how Jackson befriended him in the early 1990s after the child actor catapulted to fame with the Home Alone movies.

“He reached out to me because a lot of things were happening big and fast with me. And I think … yes, he identified with that,” Culkin explained. “I mean, at the end of the day, it’s almost easy to try to say it was ‘weird’ or whatever, but it wasn’t, because it made sense. Like, we were legitimate — At the end of the day, we were friends, in the most simple [way].”

He continued on, explaining how it was “one of my friendships that people question, only because of the fact that he was the most famous person in world.”

“Like, we’re friendly, but people wouldn’t question that,” the 38-year-old actor told Rosenbaum, 46. “You don’t have to explain that to people. Seriously, how many friendships have you had to explain?”

He said he gets why people are fascinated by the friendship, but said, “For me, it’s so normal and mundane. I know it’s a big deal to everybody else, but it was a normal friendship.”

Culkin previously admitted to sharing Jackson’s bed a number of times between the ages of 10 and 14. He testified at Jackson’s child molestation trial in 2005, vehemently denying that the singer ever molested him.

He insisted on the podcast that despite their 22-year age gap, Jackson, who was also once a child star, understood him in a way most couldn’t. “I was a peerless person,” he said. “Nobody else in my Catholic school even had this much idea of what I was going through, and he was the kind of person who’d been through the exact same frickin’ thing and wanted to make sure I wasn’t alone in that kind of [situation].”

Plus, he said he was able to be friends with Jackson, who he described as “generous,” “gentle” and “funny,” because he didn’t treat him as a megastar.

“I really didn’t actually give a s— about famous people. I was thoroughly unimpressed by them,” Culkin said. “So, when I first met him, I was just like, ‘OK, cool. You’re just that guy. Oh, that guy who sings songs? Cool. I sing songs in school. Great.”

“I think that’s one of the reasons why we got along; everyone was always thoroughly impressed by him. So the fact that [I was] somebody who was kind of just treating him like a normal person … Yeah. It was that simple,” he said.

Recalling the fond memories of their friendship, like when they would prank phone call people, he described Jackson as “charming,” “generous” and “silly.”

“He was f—ing awesome. He was hilarious. He was sweet. People don’t know how funny he f—ing was!” he said.

“For me, it’s so normal and mundane. I know it’s a big deal to everyone else… it was a normal friendship,” Culkin concluded.