All About Macaulay Culkin’s Parents, Kit Culkin and Patricia Brentrup

Macaulay Culkin had a unique childhood thanks to his parents, Christopher Cornelius “Kit” Culkin and Patricia Brentrup.

The American Horror Story actor became the breadwinner for his family as a child, starring in the classic Christmas movies Home Alone, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York and the comedy Richie Rich. During this time, Kit and Brentrup began managing their sons’ careers, including Macaulay, Kieran Culkin and Rory Culkin.

Amid his rising fame, though, Macaulay’s finances caused strife within his family, especially after his parents, who had been together since 1974 but never married, separated in 1995.

While he still maintains a relationship with Brentrup, he’s been estranged from his father since he was a teen — but contrary to rumors, he clarified to Esquire that he never emancipated himself from his parents.

The Hollywood Walk of Fame recipient has since come to terms with his unique upbringing and is now a father to two children with his fiancée, Brenda Song.

“I’ve got something to show for it,” he said. “It took me a long time to get to that place … I want for nothing and need for even less. I’m good, man.”

Here’s everything to know about Macaulay Culkin’s parents, Kit Culkin and Patricia Brentrup.

His father was an aspiring actor

Macaulay Culkin and father Kit Culkin attend 17th Annual People’s Choice Awards in March 1993.

Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection/Getty

Kit was born in New York City on Dec. 6, 1944. He was one of four siblings to a dad in public relations and a mom who was a “short-story writer and book reviewer” before starting a family.

Macaulay’s father was an actor himself, appearing in the Broadway play Becket in 1961 and the 1964 Broadway production of Hamlet starring Richard Burton. He also played the role of a dancer in the original West Side Story film in 1961.

Kit’s own childhood was far from ideal: His sister, Die Hard and Parenthood actress Bonnie Bedelia, told The Chicago Tribune that their mother died when she and Kit, as well as their brother Terry and sister Candice, were teens. Their father also had health problems that led to them being on their own in their apartment for nearly a full year.

They welcomed Macaulay in 1980

Brentrup, a North Dakota native, met Kit in 1974 in Sundance, Wyoming, when she was directing traffic at a construction site, and he stopped his truck.

“It was just instant,” she told The New York Times in 1991 about their relationship, which they “never found the need to formalize” through legal marriage.

Kit and Brentrup began dating almost right away, The Guardian reported, and moved to N.Y.C., where they started their family. The couple welcomed Macaulay — the third of their seven children together — on Aug. 26, 1980, naming him after the British historian Thomas Babington Macaulay.

They struggled financially before Macaulay’s success

Patricia Brentrup leaves Supreme Court in New York City after winning custody battle against Kit Culkin. ; Macaulay Culkin attends the rehearsals for 48th Annual Golden Globe Awards in January 1991.

Thomas Monaster/NY Daily News Archive/Getty ; Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection/Getty

As their children grew up, Kit worked as a taxi driver before landing a job as a sacristan for a Catholic church on the Upper East Side in N.Y.C. Meanwhile, Brentrup was a telephone operator. The family lived nearby in a railroad-style apartment where five kids shared two bunk beds in a single room.

“It was just a hallway, and there were no separating doors, except for the bathroom, which didn’t have a lock,” Kieran recalled to Vanity Fair in 2018. “They raised seven kids in that apartment — for years! They just kept bringing babies home to this little space.”

At their residence, Kit and Brentrup met a neighbor who was a stage manager at Ensemble Studio Theatre, and they were later introduced to casting director Billy Hopkins. He gave Macaulay his first job at 6 years old in the 1988 drama Rocket Gibraltar starring Burt Lancaster.

Hopkins remembered their humbling beginnings, telling New York Magazine in 2001: “They were so poor I had to use my own money to make sure that he got to and from rehearsal. Macaulay would crawl under the bleachers at the theater to look for change that had fallen out of people’s pockets.”

Still, the casting director was hopeful for his success, “He was like a little angel with a tilted halo,” he added. The following year, Macaulay got his breakthrough role in Uncle Buck and landed Home Alone shortly after.

The actor told The Guardian that they continued to live in the apartment for two more years after earning well from his movies, and even after they moved into a larger home, they continued living like they were still in a small space.

All of their kids were child actors

Macaulay Culkin with his brother Kieran Culkin in 1991.

Dave Benett/Getty

Macaulay wasn’t the only family member in the show business.

His brother Kieran starred alongside him in Home Alone, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York and Only the Lonely. After memorable performances in Father of the Bride and Father of the Bride Part II, Kieran appeared in other notable works, like She’s All That and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Today, he’s best known for playing Roman Roy in HBO’s drama Succession.

Macaulay’s youngest brother, Rory, portrayed younger versions of him in several projects, including Richie Rich and Igby Goes Down. He also starred in You Can Count on Me opposite Laura Linney and in Signs with Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix. Since then, Rory’s credits have included Scream 4, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Under the Banner of Heaven.

Their sister Quinn Culkin had a short-lived acting career, only starring in Wish Kid and The Good Son with Macaulay. Similarly, Christian Culkin appeared in My Summer Story with Kieran and Shane Culkin was cast in Our Town on Broadway at Lincoln Center Theater.

The group’s late sister, Dakota Culkin, was an art production assistant before she died in 2008 at the age of 29 when she was struck by a car.

His parents separated after 21 years

In the summer of 1995, Brentrup filed papers in the New York State Supreme Court seeking custody of their six minor kids and the right to manage their careers. Nearly two years later, Kit decided not to contest custody and avoided a trial, per The New York Times.

Brentrup eventually remarried and moved to a ranch in Billings, Montana.

He and his siblings were mostly raised by their mom

Rory Culkin with his mother Patricia Brentrup arriving at the “Signs” premiere after party in New York City in July 2002.

Evan Agostini/ImageDirect

The Culkins’ family manager told Vanity Fair in 2018 that Brentrup “maintained strong family values” with her kids before and after the breakup, “like the family having a meal together, the Christmas tree, Thanksgiving. These are all important things to Patty, and she instilled that in her kids.”

In January 2024, Kieran called his mom “amazing” in his acceptance speech for best actor in a drama series at the Golden Globes.

“I have no idea how my mom did it — she raised us in this basically studio apartment and I don’t know how she did it,” he said later that evening in the press room. “Obviously [I] wouldn’t be here without her. Not just because of the sex she had with my father. For the woman she is. And for having sex with my father. You don’t hear me thanking my dad.”

Macaulay has alleged that his father was abusive

Macaulay has spoken about his strained relationship with his father and has accused Kit of being “physically and mentally ” abusive and resentful of his career success.

“[He said] ‘Do good or I’ll hit you.’ He was a bad man. He was abusive, physically and mentally — I can show you all my scars if I wanted to,” he said on WTF With Marc Maron in 2018.

Macaulay also voiced that Kit was jealous of his fame. “Everything he tried to do in life, I excelled at before I was 10 years old,” he explained, adding that his father pressured him to work even when he didn’t want to any longer and often made him sleep on a couch.

For his part, Kit’s late partner, Jeanette Krylowski, denied that he was abusive to any of his children, telling New York Magazine that Brentrup lied to their kids to alienate them from their father.

“My analysis is [that] she was the only one not getting famous and she felt left behind,” Krylowski said. “The kids do what Mom tells them to, because through the years, Mom had said, ‘Your father doesn’t love you, your father doesn’t love you.’ ”

Macaulay removed his parents from managing his finances

Macaulay Culkin and his parents, Kit and Patricia, and brother Kieran Culkin.

Stuart Ramson/Daily Mail/Shutterstock 

Kit managed Macaulay’s career, contracts and finances. He developed a reputation for being difficult to work with, reportedly delaying films including The Good Son and The Nutcracker due to his demands, according to The New York Times.

Despite his dad negotiating on his behalf in Hollywood, Macaulay said it wasn’t until his parents’ custody battle that he learned he was worth about $50 million because Kit kept him in the dark about his finances.

“My father would hide newspapers from me so I wouldn’t read the stuff about him or find out how much I was making,” he told New York Magazine.

After the My Girl star found out about his earnings, he learned that the only way he could access it was if he removed Kit from the trust fund, and because he “didn’t want to make it messy,” he pulled both of his parents’ names and opted for an executor.

“I had millions and millions of dollars in the bank and my mother couldn’t pay the rent because she was spending all of her money on lawyers. We were about to get evicted from our apartment,” he said of his decision.

Kit is estranged from Macaulay and the rest of the family

Speaking with New York Magazine in 2001, Macaulay shared that he hadn’t seen his father since 1997, when the custody dispute ended. The actor also noted that when Kit disappeared, he “stole all of my memorabilia, like my very first costume and all the things I had collected over the years.”

Although he no longer had cherished items, Macaulay was ready to move on. “For now, my opinion is, the farther away he is the better when it comes to, like, everything,” he said. “We think he’s in Arizona. That guy always wanted to be a cowboy.”

During his appearance on WTF With Marc Maron, he further added that he hasn’t spoken to his father in “about a quarter of a century.”

Kieran revealed to Vanity Fair that he was also estranged from Kit. “He’s not a good dude, but he wasn’t really a big part of my life after the age of 15,” he said, adding that Brentrup was his parent.

In January 2014, Kit suffered a massive stroke, TMZ reported. EMTs responded to a call at his home in Grants Pass, Oregon, and he was hospitalized in intensive care. Kit reportedly lost all motor function at the time, which he later confirmed after recovering.

Kieran told The Hollywood Reporter in 2021 that his father came to watch him in a play following his stroke.

“He carried cards around with him that said, ‘I’m not stupid. I understand you. I just had a stroke,’ ” he recalled, adding that Kit told him that Krylowski had dementia at the time. (She died in 2017.)

Kieran said he and Kit didn’t speak again following the visit.

He wrote about his father in a book

Macaulay Culkin poses for photographs before reading and signing copies of his novel “Junior” in March 2006 in New York City.

Mat Szwajkos/Getty

Macaulay’s father was a large part of the inspiration for his semi-autobiographical novel Junior, published in 2006. The book featured essays, poetry and open letters to Kit.

“I think there’s two different fathers that I have. I have my father, and I have the one in my head,” he told New York Magazine that same year. “The real one is gone and should be gone.”

Macaulay explained that part of his reason for writing Junior was to put the father in his head “to rest” and gain closure on their relationship, partly because Kit wouldn’t take accountability for how he treated him and his siblings.

“He would black out all the terrible things that he did, and that hurt me more, because he’d go to bed at night thinking he was a good person,” he said. “People do bad things in their lives. And those [sorts] of things are forgivable. That’s half the point of having confession in church — you need to be able to fess up to what you’ve done. He just couldn’t.”

As for what his father taught him, Macaulay shared, “I knew from a very early age that I better take notes on him. Notes on how not to be, notes on how I don’t want to be when I grow up.”

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Source: HIS Education