Macaulay Culkin revealed that he has an “outstanding debt” to onscreen mom Catherine O’Hara following her death in January.
“When Catherine passed away in January, that hit me. That hit me pretty good, ’cause, you know, it was just too soon,” the actor told Gentleman’s Journal in a recent interview.
“And I felt that we had unfinished business,” he continued. “I definitely feel like I had unfinished business with her, you know?”
Culkin, now 45, noted that he “felt like I owed her a favor — and I don’t like having an outstanding debt.”
O’Hara — who played Culkin’s onscreen mother, Kate McAllister, opposite his mischievous Kevin McAllister in “Home Alone” (1990) and “Home Alone 2” (1992) — died on Jan. 30 at her home in Los Angeles following a brief illness. She was 71.
At the time, Culkin took to social media to mourn her with an emotional tribute.
“Mama. I thought we had time. I wanted more. I wanted to sit in a chair next to you. I heard you,” he wrote alongside a photo of them embracing in the original film, along with a pic of the pair at his Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony in 2023.
He added in the heartbreaking upload, “But I had so much more to say. I love you. I’ll see you later.”
O’Hara’s was notably preceded in death by her onscreen husband — Culkin’s onscreen dad — played by John Heard, who died in 2017 at age 71 following a sudden heart attack.
During Culkin’s Walk of Fame induction, the late “Beetlejuice” actress returned the former child star’s affection, saying that the reason audiences “all over the world can’t let a year go by without watching and loving ‘Home Alone’ together [is] because of Macaulay Culkin.”
“Yes, yes, he had a most excellent script and a wonderful director, but it is Macaulay’s perfect performance as Kevin McCallister that gave us that little everyboy on an extraordinary adventure,” she gushed at the time.
She added, “Macaulay, your sense of humor, it’s a sign of intelligence in a child, and a key to surviving life at any age. And you have, from what I see, you have brought that sense of sweet, yet twisted, yet totally relatable sense of humor to everything that you have chosen to do since ‘Home Alone.’”
O’Hara quipped at the ceremony, “thank you for including me, your fake mom who left you home alone not once but twice, to share in this happy occasion. I’m so proud of you.”
