Facts About Macaulay Culkin We Just Learned That Made Us Say 'Really?'

At 10 years old, he signed a contract to be the leading lad in Home Alone. The success of that film was highly unexpected but it went on to gross upwards of $457 million. Regardless of Culkin's extremely memorable performance in this holiday comedy, he was only paid $100,000. While that could seem like a hefty price for a 10-year-old in 1990, he actually increased his pay drastically in his following roles. 

However, it's a shame for Culkin that he got a little jilted acting in the movie because he doesn't even get royalties for the reruns.

Shortly after Home Alone's astounding success, Culkin was offered a role in the 1991 film My Girl as the kid who's essentially allergic to everything. The film was wildly popular, and for a kid who had previously stunned audiences with his likeability, it's no wonder his pay when up substantially from what he was given for Home Alone.

In fact, his million-dollar payout for the role made Culkin the first child actor to ever make a million or more dollars for starring in a single film. 

In the climactic scene at the end of The Good Son, we see Culkin's character dropped off the side of a cliff. Initially, as is common in Hollywood, it's unsurprising that a lot of people expected it to have been the work of a stunt double - but that's not the case in this scene. Both Culkin and his costar Elijah Wood had to be trained extensively by a stunt coordinator to accomplish this. 

Before agreeing to this, though, Culkin had a condition: he wanted a BB gun for completing the training and filming. Once filming had been wrapped that day, he was given his BB gun.

In addition to taking center stage on movie sets, Culkin took the stage in a different way as well. He was a student at the School of American Ballet before making it big in Hollywood, and was a dancer in multiple performances of The Nutcracker in the early 1990s. He portrayed Fritz in two City Ballet performances of the iconic ballet, and was included in the film adaptation as well. 

Critics were hard on his dancing, however, noting that he was not as fluid as ballet dancers need to be. Regardless, at his young age, it's admirable that he landed the role and tried!

Culkin was indeed made godfather to one of Michael Jackson's children, Paris. Though he was only 18 years old when she was born, the friendship Culkin and Jackson had - and the accelerated childhood Culkin experienced from his fame - was strong enough for the two to agree to that arrangement and responsibility. 

In the years since Michael Jackson passed, Culkin has taken his responsibility as godfather extremely seriously. While he doesn't talk about her much in his interviews - he claims because he's protective over her - Paris posts about him on her Instagram, and the two have even gotten matching tattoos together. 

Macaulay Culkin dated That '70s Show young star Mila Kunis, and it wasn't a short-lived romance, either. The two young stars dated for eight years actually, from 2002 to 2011. For many years, both Culkin and Kunis were quiet about their relationship, keeping the more intimate details hushed and to themselves, presumably because of his intense fame. Datings in their formative years, it was reported that the two had typical ups and downs but ultimately had a relatively steady relationship.

It wasn't until 2018 that Kunis gave a sort of glimpse into her young love on Dax Shepard's podcast. She addressed the amicable split that had been previously reported, stating that while they remain friends to this day, they had a "horrible, horrible breakup." She admitted to being at fault in a lot of ways, saying that she's essentially not proud of how she behaved in her twenties and that it took her a long time to come to grips with her actions and ultimately their separation.