Filmmaker Chris Columbus, who directed the blockbuster sequel, "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" more than 30 years ago, says President Donald Trump's cameo in the movie has been "an albatross for me" and a "curse," but he can't go back in and edit out the appearance.
"I can't cut it," Columbus told The San Francisco Chronicle, the newspaper reported Tuesday. "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."
Columbus was born and raised in the United States, but has Italian ancestry, and was likely making a joke about the president's policy on mass deportations.
But Trump's seven-second cameo back in 1992, when he was a Manhattan real-estate tycoon and not the leader of the free world.
And since then, he and Columbus have not agreed about how the part came about.
In the cameo, Trump is seen giving child star Macaulay Culkin, who famously played Kevin McAllister, directions in the New York Plaza Hotel, which the then-future president owned back then.
Columbus also directed the original "Home Alone" in 1990, starring Culkin as a 10-year-old who chases away bad guys trying to break into his house after his parents left him alone at Christmas.
The movie, Columbus's first big hit, was filmed in Chicago for $18 million and pulled in more than $475 million.
And before he started work on another '90s classic, "Mrs. Doubtfire," Columbus made the "Home Alone" sequel, this time with Kevin McAllister out on his own in New York City.
The director said in an interview for Business Insider in 2020 that Trump agreed to let the production film at the Plaza, but only if he could get a cameo.
Three years later, in 2023, Trump heard about what Columbus had said and denied he'd bullied his way into the movie, insisting on Truth Social that the filmmaker had been "begging" him to appear in the sequel.
"I was very busy, and didn't want to do it," he said. "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."
He added that now, 30 years later, "Columbus (what was his real name?) 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!"
Columbus did not immediately respond to Trump's post but now he says he intended to cut his cameo from the movie because he didn't think it was that funny. He said he regrets leaving Trump in his movie.
"We screened the film in Chicago, and when that moment came onscreen the audience went crazy," Columbus said. "They cheered and they cheered and they thought it was hilarious. I think I know a lot about comedy, but I don't, obviously, because I never thought that was going to be considered hilarious."
And now, "it's become this curse," Columbus said.
"What's going through this guy's mind?" he added. "He said I was lying. I'm not lying. He said I begged him to be in the movie, but there's no [way] I would ever beg a non-actor to be in a movie. But we were desperate to get the Plaza Hotel."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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