Macaulay Culkin is on the cover of Esquire, and the magazine notes that while the former child star has been a household name for decades, "he hasn’t done a photo shoot like this in fifteen years." He's only made a few movies over the past two decades, and had turned into "a kind of nether-celebrity" for a while. "People assume that I’m crazy, or a kook, or damaged. Weird. Cracked," Culkin says. "And up until the last year or two, I haven’t really put myself out there at all. So I can understand that. It’s also like, Okay, everybody, stop acting so freaking shocked that I’m relatively well-adjusted." As for his onetime drug problem, that's a thing of the past: "Besides the occasional muscle relaxer, no, I don’t do drugs recreationally. I still kinda drink like a fish. I drink and I smoke. But I don’t touch the things. I do love them. They’re like old friends. But sometimes you outgrow your friends."
The wide-ranging interview covers the death of Culkin's sister in 2008, his relationship with fellow former child star Brenda Song (they're trying to have a baby; "we practice a lot," Culkin jokes), his father ("he's a s---ty guy, don't get me wrong"), his career ("it started feeling like a chore. I started vocalizing that and not being heard"), and, yes, his famous friendship with Michael Jackson. "He never did anything to me. I never saw him do anything. And especially at this flash point in time, I’d have no reason to hold anything back," Culkin says. "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; he never did anything." The full article, which includes a story about Culkin refusing to discuss Jackson with James Franco, is worth a read. (More Macaulay Culkin stories.)
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