At this point, Macaulay Culkin doesn’t have a lot to say about Michael Jackson that he hasn’t already said. Discussing his childhood with Esquire, Culkin looked back on his friendship with Michael Jackson. Jackson has been the subject of child-sexual-abuse allegations for decades, but the last time Culkin saw Jackson was in 2005 when he was testifying in the pop star’s defense. (Jackson would be acquitted.) Now, 15 years later, Culkin’s response remains the same. “Look, I’m gonna begin with the line — it’s not a line, it’s the truth: He never did anything to me,” he told Esquire. “I never saw him do anything.”
The allegations against Jackson resurfaced with last year’s Leaving Neverland, an HBO documentary following the now-adult accusers. Two of the subjects, James Safechuck and Wade Robson, recently won the right to sue Jackson’s estate after a California law change updated the statute of limitations. The documentary caught the attention of many celebrities, including James Franco, whom Culkin ran into shortly after it premiered. “He goes, ‘So what do you think?’” the 39-year-old recalled. “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.’” With the allegations back in headlines, Culkin says he’d have “no reason” not to come forward, if he knew anything. “The guy has passed on,” he continued. “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.”
