Home Alone’s legendary director Chris Columbus has admitted the Donald Trump cameo in the beloved movie’s sequel is a “curse” and that he wishes it “was gone”. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York was released in 1992, just two years after the 1990 original, and featured a scene where Macaulay Culkin’s protagonist Kevin McCallister briefly meets Trump in the Plaza Hotel and asks him for directions. The entire sequence last just seven seconds and the filmmaker is now very vocal in his dislike of the moment.
“(It has) become this curse. It’s become an albatross for me. I just wish it was gone. I can’t cut it. If I cut it, I’ll probably be sent out of the country. I’ll be considered sort of not fit to live in the United States, so I’ll have to go back to Italy or something,” he said in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.
Oscar nominee Columbus, who also directed the first two Harry Potter films had previously discussed the cameo with Business Insider in 2020 claiming Trump more or less “bullied his way into the movie.”
“We paid the fee, but he also said, ‘The only way you can use the Plaza is if I’m in the movie’. So we agreed to put him in the movie, and when we screened it for the first time the oddest thing happened: People cheered when Trump showed up on screen. So I said to my editor, ‘Leave him in the movie. It’s a moment for the audience’,” he said.
Trump himself has disputed this account. Writing on Truth Social in 2023 he insisted that Columbus was “begging” him to appear in “Home Alone 2.”
“I was very busy, and didn’t want to do it. They were very nice, but above all, persistent. I agreed, and the rest is history! That little cameo took off like a rocket, and the movie was a big success, and still is, especially around Christmas time.
People call me whenever it is aired. Now, however, 30 years later, Columbus…put out a statement that I bullied myself into the movie. Nothing could be further from the truth. That cameo helped make the movie a success … Just another Hollywood guy from the past looking for a quick fix of Trump publicity for himself!” he penned.
Lost in the Big Apple, sees Kevin stumble into the Plaza Hotel and briefly meets Trump, who he asks for directions. Trump owned the Plaza Hotel at the time.
Columbus isn’t alone in wishing the cameo could be removed from the beloved family flick. Macaulay Culkin went viral for backing an online campaign to erase Trump from the film.
Responding to a tweet from a fan that read “Petition to digitally replace Trump in ‘Home Alone 2’ with 40-year-old Macaulay Culkin,” the actor wrote: “Sold.”
Canada’s CBC television station took matters into their own hands in 2019 when they cut it from a broadcast. Defending the decision CBC spokesman Chuck Thompson said eight minutes of the 120-minute film had been trimmed to make way for adverts.
He said the edits were made in 2014, before Trump was elected, and were not politically motivated.