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Macaulay Culkin has again spoken out about his friendship with Michael Jackson, insisting he has nothing to ”speak up about” when it comes to the late singer.
The Home Alone actor was friends with Jackson from around the age of nine. He testified at Jackson’s child molestation trial in 2003, and called the allegations against him “absolutely ridiculous”.
Culkin also previously defended the late singer in 2019, saying: “[Michael] reached out to me because a lot of things were happening, big and fast with me and I think he identified with that.
“At the end of the day, it’s almost easy to say it was weird or whatever but it wasn’t because it made sense. At the end of the day, we were friends.” Now, speaking to Esquire, the actor has defended Jackson again.
”He never did anything to me. I never saw him do anything. And especially at this flashpoint in time, I’d have no reason to hold anything back,” he said.
”The guy has passed on. If anything – I’m not gonna say it would be stylish or anything like that, but right now is a good time to speak up. And if I had something to speak up about, I would totally do it. But no, I never saw anything.”
The actor also admitted that following the release of the documentary Leaving Neverland, a number of people questioned his friendship with Jackson.
He said: “Here’s a good Michael Jackson story that doesn’t involve Michael Jackson at all: I ran into James Franco on a plane. I’d bumped into him two or three times over the years. I give him a little nod as we’re putting our bags overhead. ‘Hey, how you doing?’ he said. ‘Good, how ya doing?’
“And it was right after the Leaving Neverland documentary came out, and he goes, ‘So, that documentary!’ And that was all he said.
“I was like, ‘Uh-huh.’ Silence. So then he goes, ‘So what do you think?’ And I turned to him and I go, ‘Do you wanna talk about your dead friend?’ And he sheepishly went, ‘No, I don’t.’ So I said, ‘Cool, man, it was nice to see you.'”
Wade Robson and James Safechuck accused Michael Jackson of sexually abusing them as children in the documentary.
The estate, his family, and Jackson himself before he died in 2009 have denied all accusations of sexual misconduct levelled against him.
Meanwhile, Culkin also revealed in the same interview that he had a “disastrous” interview for Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.
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