
There are three Macaulay Culkins.
There's the one who exists in our minds' eye: 10 years old, blonde fringe, impish smirk, frozen as Home Alone's Kevin McCallister or My Girl's Thomas J Sennett.
There's the one who exists in the tabloids as the former child-star cliche; reclusive, troubled, supposedly victimised and drug-addled.
And then there's the one who we know through interviews, his writings and social media. That version, seemingly the closest to the truth, is a now 40-year-old man; reflective, honest and good-humoured about his unlikely life.
This is his story.
The poor millionaire.
It's hard to overstate the success of the 1990 film, Home Alone. By the time it left theatres, it was the highest-grossing comedy of all time and the third most successful movie of any genre behind Star Wars and E.T.
It made such a star of Macaulay Culkin that, at just 10 years old, he commanded $1 million for his next film, My Girl.
But even at the height of his fame, the highest-paid child actor in history didn't have a bed.
Culkin was raised in a small, one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan, the third of six siblings. There were only two doors in the flat; the entry and the bathroom. And the children slept in crowded bunks.
His mother, Patricia, worked as a telephone operator, and his father, Kit, as a Catholic Church sacristan.
It was circumstance that launched him (and later, several of his siblings) into show business. A friend and neighbour worked as a stage manager at a theatre in the Hell's Kitchen neighbourhood, which was running a production that needed a six-year-old boy.
"She knew this family – this huge family – around the corner, and she figured there might be somebody of the right age and the right gender and there I was," Culkin told New York Magazine.
Casting director Bill Hopkins recalled having to pay for the young star's transport to and from rehearsal; his parents simply didn't have the funds.
"They were so poor..." he told the publication. "Macaulay would crawl under the bleachers at the theatre to look for change that had fallen out of people’s pockets. They were like the Beverly Hillbillies."
Macaulay Culkin, 10, with his parents. Image: Getty.