Home Alone: The Perilous Slide of Macauley Culkin

For many of us, there is a particular movie that is keenly attached to out childhood memories and that is Home Alone. What really made the moving appealing to us then and probably now is the outstanding performance of that little kid actor then, Macauley Culkin. The movie made him a big star and every one of us then wanted to be just like him. But fame was too fragile for him to handle and he went from being a star boy to a drug addict.

Macaulay Culkin played all the best parts in pretty much every amazing kids movie ever made. He got to live by himself in Home Alone and Home Alone 2 and he made me cry for hours when he played the cute and loyal Thomas J in My Girl.

He then cheered us up, while making us all insanely jealous, when he had his own roller coaster in Richie Rich, complete with his own McDonalds!

He literally lived every kid's dream! But what happened to Macaulay during his life off screen? Here's the story of the former child star's sometimes bittersweet life after the cameras stopped rolling.

Born August 26th, 1980 in New York, the super cute Macaulay was the third of eventually seven children.

He began acting at the age of four, but got his big break in John Hughes movie Uncle Buck with the legendary John Candy.

But it was age nine when he got his huge break and starred as Kevin McCallister in the ONLY film acceptable to watch at least five times over the festive season, Home Alone.

It was around this time that Macaulay started his well-publicized friendship with the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, even starring in his music video for the single 'Black or White.'

After Michael was accused of child molestation, Macauley went to the pop stars' trial stating they slept in the same bedroom on the singer's estate 'Neverland.' However, he has always strongly emphasized that nothing sexual ever happened between the two and he continued to show nothing but support for his musician friend.

The sequel to Home Alone, where he gets lost in New York followed along with his critically acclaimed tear jerking performance in My Girl.

He was even given the accolade of appearing on Saturday Night Livewhere the cast, including the late Chris Farley, mimicked a scene fromHome Alone.

His next movies, such as Richie Rich didn't have the same box office success, but he was now a household name. However, his successful career couldn't have been more of a stark contrast to his miserable family life.

At the breaking point, he announced he was quitting acting at the ripe old age of 14. A huge part of his decision was to spite his foreboding father Kit who, after buying the huge Culkin brood an upgrade from a one bedroomed apartment to a huge New York City townhouse, was still unhappy with Macaulay and his siblings, even though it was his young sons' money that funded his new lavish lifestyle.

Said Culkin of his difficult father:

My father was overbearing. Very controlling. He was always the way he is, even before my success. He’d play mind games to make sure I knew my place.

His parents finally divorced, both filing for custody, and both wanting control over Macaulay's $11 million dollar fortune.

In an interview several years later the star said:

I'd made enough money by 12 to never have to work again.

Knowing his father and mother Patricia wanted his money, the young child managed to stop his parents from getting their hands on his hard earned cash, a move which led to his father no longer wanting to communicate with him.

Moving out of the limelight, Macaulay dropped out of school before finishing his senior year to marry his childhood sweetheart, Rachel Miller.

They married when they were both just 17 in 1998 but separated in 2000, with their divorce finalized in 2002.

He embarked on a longterm relationship with actress Mila Kunis for around eight years, between 2002 and 2011, before making a bizarre return to film in 2003 when he starred in the brightly colored, drug-fueled, party hard movie Party Monster. In 2004 he was arrested for possession of controlled substances including marijuana and Xanax.

After the demise of his relationship, and with no stabilizing influence, Macaulay began a dangerous descent into what looked like a debilitating drug addiction.

Rumors flew around of his heroin addiction and that he was purchasing hundreds of pills of Vicodin and other prescription medications every few days, spending hundreds of dollars. The above picture, taken in New York in 2012, only added fuel to the fire.

He also took part in the movie The Wrong Ferrari which was shot entirely on an iPhone by Adam Green, once a member of the band Moldy Peaches, and who openly advocates the use of drugs. The movie also starred musician Pete Doherty, a British musician who, at the time, was in the middle of a very publicly displayed addiction to narcotics.

In 2013 a video was uploaded to YouTube of a healthier looking Macaulay eating a slice of pizza, which seems rather bizarre, but is actually a nod to Andy Warhol and the video of the artist eating a Burger King Whopper in Jørgen Leth's documentary 66 Scenes from America.This was the introduction to Culkin's next project, his band, The Pizza Underground.

Focusing on covering songs by The Velvet Underground, but with a pizza based theme, the band have toured extensively. The rumor that they are sick and tired of eating pizza hasn't been confirmed. If you're curious, watch the video below, but don't if you're hungry, it contains hundreds of slices of pizza.

Also the victim of an Internet hoax claiming he was dead, it looks like Macaulay is having the last laugh as he now looks fit, healthy, enjoying his work and has found happiness with girlfriend Jordan Lane Price.

Here's hoping his life is as happy as an eight-year-old is when they watchHome Alone for the first time, which, let's face it, is the happiest a person could ever be!