Daniel Stern Felt Bad For ‘Home Alone’ Co-Star Macaulay Culkin And The “Adult Pressure” He Endured As A Child: “Didn’t Know How To Play Tag Or Throw A Ball”

We always love a Hollywood memoir, and actor Daniel Stern, whose autobiographical book Home and Alone came out on May 21, wrote a juicy one. The memoir includes wild stories about Stern snorting real cocaine for the film Honky Tonk Freeway, and his unsuccessful attempt to expose Brett Ratner and Jeremy Piven for harassment on the set of his 1999 sitcom Partners.

And, of course, it also includes tales from his time on the set of one of his most famous films, Home Alone.

In the book, Stern writes about his time working with a then 10-year-old Macaulay Culkin (who had already been working for years as a child actor before his starring role in the film) and spending a day at the park with Culkin during some time off.

“He was a sweet kid but had lived a very different life than my kids. He didn’t know how to play tag or throw the ball around. He was more of an indoor kid and had a lot of adult pressure on him from show business and parents and such,” Stern recalls in his memoir, per Entertainment Weekly.

Stern also describes the attention and material gifts Culkin received from Michael Jackson, who had struck up a relationship with the young actor. Culkin would go on to star in Jackson’s video for 1991’s “Black and White” the year after Home Alone premiered.

“We realized he had formed a friendship with Michael Jackson because when we picked him up, his hotel room was stacked, literally from wall to wall and ceiling to floor, with toys,” Stern writes.

He continues, “Every conceivable toy, as if someone went through Toys ‘R’ Us, took one of each, and dropped them in his room. All a gift from Michael Jackson. It made all of us feel really bad for Mac. My kids had experienced a taste of the distortions that fame can bring, but seeing what Mac’s life was like put things in a different perspective.”

Stern and Culkin (and Kate Hudson) would later co-star in Home Alone 2: Lost In New York in 1992.