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People v. Jackson (Day 50)

After wavering about testifying, Macaulay Culkin ended up taking the stand early Wednesday to deny that Michael Jackson ever molested him.

Previous witnesses in Jackson's child-molestation trial had described the singer kissing and groping the then-child actor. Most notably, a former Neverland chef testified that he witnessed Jackson putting his hand up Culkin's shorts as he lifted the boy to reach a video arcade game. The prosecution had presented that testimony to try to establish that Jackson had a pattern of predatory pedophilia reaching beyond the current accuser's case.

Culkin, now 24, has maintained that his childhood sleepovers at Neverland were innocent, and called the accusations "absolutely ridiculous." He testified that prosecutors never asked him whether he had been molested and he only learned of the allegations by watching CNN. "It was amazing to me that nobody even approached me and asked if these allegations were true," he said.

On cross-examination, prosecutor Ron Zonen asked if authorities had tried repeatedly to contact him but were turned away. "Not that I know of, no," Culkin said. Zonen then asked if prosecutors had tried to contact him in 1993 and more recently, when his attorney said that Culkin wouldn't give a statement prior to testifying. Culkin said yes, that his lawyer had suggested he not talk to the attorneys. "I wasn't really planning on testifying," he said.

The actor said he met Jackson when he was about 10 years old, leading to him and his family visiting Neverland multiple times. He said he slept in the singer's bedroom, but for a lot less time than prosecutors intimated. He described falling asleep in his clothes in various places at Neverland. And during his time at the ranch, he said, he never saw Jackson "do anything improper with anyone."

Culkin was asked about a trip he took to Bermuda with a friend's family in which Jackson came along. He said he couldn't remember if Jackson had tried to get him alone during the trip, but he did remember the singer giving him a Rolex watch on that trip. The accuser had previously testified that Jackson gave him an expensive watch on a trip as a bribe to keep him from telling anyone that the singer had also given him wine. However, unlike the accuser, Culkin was not impressed with the gift, he said. "I was not a person without means, so it wasn't that awe-inspiring," Culkin said.

Culkin is the third young man who testified for the defense to deny that Jackson molested him during trips to Neverland. Choreographer Wade Robson and fellow Australian Brett Barnes also refuted the prosecution's claims that the singer had molested them.

“People” (May 11, 2005) (archived)

Macaulay Culkin, testifying for Michael Jackson’s defense in his child-molestation trial, took the stand Wednesday morning and vehemently denied any inappropriate behavior or touching during the times he slept at Jackson’s Neverland Ranch.

The former “Home Alone” star, 24, when asked by Jackson attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. what he thought of the charges against Jackson, replied under oath: “I think they’re absolutely ridiculous,” the Associated Press reports.

As for any possibility that Jackson, 46, might have molested Culkin while the younger man was asleep, the actor replied: “I find that unlikely … I think I’d realize if something like that was happening to me.”

During his hour-long testimony, Culkin explained that he first went to Neverland at the age of 10 and shared a bed with the pop star more than a dozen times, up until the age of 14, claiming that by then he’d “begun to enjoy his privacy a little bit more.” He said that his parents never had a problem with him sleeping in Jackson’s bedroom

Culkin added that prosecutors never approached him to question whether he had been molested – learning only of the allegations that he had been molested from watching TV news coverage.

“Somebody told me, ‘You should probably check out CNN because they’re saying something about you.’ I just couldn’t believe it,” Culkin said, adding: “It was amazing to me that nobody even approached me and asked if these allegations were true.”

Prosecutors countered that they had tried to speak to Culkin, but were rebuffed by the actor’s lawyers.

Following Culkin’s testimony, two videotaped interviews with Michael Jackson himself were played by the defense (Jackson has not taken the stand). In the two hours of taped footage, the star described his “pure” love of children and likened himself to Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Gandhi and Princess Diana, reports The New York Times.

“Didn’t Jesus say, ‘Bring on the children?'” Jackson says on tape.

“New York” (March 1, 2006) (archived)

“[My novel ‘Junior’] is not a sensational book. There’s no Michael Jackson references at all, so get that out of your head right now.”

That’s easier said than done, given that it was less than a year ago that Culkin testified for the defense during the pop star’s molestation trial. “You know, I didn’t want to get involved with the whole thing,” he says. “It was a big, fat mess. I almost wanted to say to him, ‘You should have known better, just to even have those kind of people in your life.’ ” He thinks for a moment and continues. “I don’t know how it happened, but somehow I’ve become the resident Michael Jackson expert. We’re close, he’s a good friend of mine, we definitely have a connection that most people don’t have, but he’s a friend that I talk to once a year.” When they talk, Culkin always encourages Jackson to get back to music. “You know, call up the Roots, call up the Beastie Boys, call up Björk.” The last time they spoke was a few months after the trial: “He sounded better …” He trails off, distracted. “One of the things that I always thought is that I could have turned out that way. I’m a fairly sheltered person, but I could have just put up a fortress around myself, bought a big chunk of land somewhere, and said, ‘Fuck all y’all!’ But I made a decision when I was 14 that I was going to live life, where I think he made the opposite decision. It’s a cool little world that he has, but at the same time, it’s become a little more distant from reality.”