‘Home Alone 2’ director Chris Columbus admits regret over Donald Trump cameo: “It’s become this curse”
Director Chris Columbus has admitted that he regrets allowing Donald Trump to have a cameo role in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, branding it “an albatross” he wishes he could get rid of.
Despite the moment in the 1992 Christmas sequel movie, Columbus feels that the US president would enforce repercussions if he were to cut the scene from the film after all these years.
In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, he said, “It’s become this curse. It’s become an albatross for me. I just wish it was gone.”
Although Columbus is a born and raised US citizen, his Italian family ancestry means he fears he would “have to go back to Italy or something” if he were to edit the scene where Trump gives directions to lead character Kevin McCallister, played by then-child star Macaulay Culkin.
Controversy was sparked between the pair back in 2020, when Columbus claimed to Business Insider that Trump “did bully his way into the movie,” owing to the fact that the scene was filmed at the New York Plaza Hotel, which the president owned at the time in his days as a business tycoon.
According to the director, Trump said: “The only way you can use the Plaza is if I’m in the movie.”
However, in 2023, Trump refuted this version of events, taking to his Truth Social platform to argue that Columbus and his team “begged” him to be in the film and that his role turned out to be “great for the movie.”
In response to this claim, Columbus countered Trump’s suggestion during his most recent interview, stating, “I’m not lying. … There’s no world I would ever beg a non-actor to be in a movie. But we were desperate to get the Plaza hotel.”
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