Macaulay Culkin jokes about Michael Jackson abuse claims

As one of the young boys regularly seen in Michael Jackson’s company in the early 90s, Macaulay Culkin has been drawn into the controversy surrounding the Leaving Neverland documentary, despite strongly maintaining that his relationship with the singer was never abusive.

The 38-year-old actor has remained silent in the aftermath of the two-part doco, but brought it up this week during a live recording of a podcast with comedian Weird Al Yankovic.

On stage at LA comedy club, Largo, Macaulay seemingly ridiculed the claims of child sexual abuse, jokingly asking Al: “I’m going to ask you a very serious question; what was your relationship like with Michael Jackson?”

“Um, mostly platonic. I met him two or three times, he was pretty sweet to me,” Al replied, prompting the pair to start laughing.

Michael’s only daughter Paris, who is Macaulay’s goddaughter, is believed to have been watching from backstage.

The Home Alone star later insisted that Michael was a ‘huge fan’ of Al’s and would play his videos ‘constantly’.

“I will say he was a huge, huge fan of yours. Yes, he always had your videos kind of playing constantly. There you go, validation. Praise. Hail, Caesar!”

As a child, Macaulay stayed over at the King of Pop’s Neverland home – but has always denied any inappropriate behaviour by the singer, who was then aged in his 30s.

He also testified in the pop star’s defence in his 2005 child molestation trial in which Michael was acquitted on every charge.

The comments follow the release of the explosive Leaving Neverland documentary which saw Wade Robson and James Safechuck claim they were sexually abused by the musician as young boys.

Leaving Neverland director Dan Reed has revealed he is interested in making a follow-up documentary film about the ‘Thriller’ hitmaker’s trial.

The director would like to delve deeper into Michael’s story but would only tackle the trial if Gavin Arvizo – the boy who accused Michael of molesting him – would consent to take part because he cannot understand how the singer was acquitted.

Asked if he’d like to make a sequel, he told Film School Rejects: “Oh yeah, I would love to do that. The film I would really like to make following this one is the trial of Michael Jackson.

“I could only do that if the victim and his family participate. It would be a much weaker film [if they didn’t.] I don’t want to follow ‘Leaving Neverland’ with a weaker film.

“If Gavin Arvizo and his family would agree to participate, I would very much like to tell the story of that trial. I think it’s fascinating and astonishing that Michael was acquitted.”

Additional reporting by Bang Showbiz

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