Culkin: Michael Jackson’s Innocent
Macaulay Culkin was called by the defense in Michael Jackson‘s child molestation trial on Wednesday. The twenty-four-year-old actor denied that he had been touched inappropriately by the singer when he was a child star, and called the charges against Jackson “absolutely ridiculous.”
Culkin, who starred in the 1990 hit family movie Home Alone and appeared in the 1991 video for Jackson’s “Black or White,” explained the basis of their relationship: “Anyone who was a child performer, we keep an eye out for each other.”
“Do you have reason to believe that Mr. Jackson molested you at any time?” the defense asked.
“Not at all,” said Culkin, according to reports. When asked if Jackson could have touched him while he was asleep, Culkin replied, “I find that unlikely. I think I’d realize that something like that was happening to me.” The actor, who is the godfather of two of Jackson’s three children, spent several nights in the singer’s bed during visits when he was ten to fourteen years old.
Culkin is the third young man the defense has called who has testified that, in spite of repeated visits to Jackson’s Neverland Ranch as a child, he was not molested.
Jackson, 46, is accused of molesting a thirteen-year-old boy in 2003, giving him wine and conspiring to keep the boy’s family captive to force them to rebut a controversial documentary about the pop star.
If convicted, Jackson faces more than twenty years in prison.