Macauley had the burden of being the most famous child actor in the world.

[quote] Inside Macaulay Culkin’s tragic life with ‘abusive’ dad & sisters’ deaths

HE will forever be known as baby-faced Kevin McCallister, the impish 8-year-old who stole the show in Home Alone.

But incredibly, Macaulay Culkin has overcome a very turbulent few years to come out happier than ever as a new dad to his first child. While Macaulay revealed the happy baby news to Esquire on Monday and said they're "overjoyed,” the Home Alone actor hasn't always felt that way throughout his life.

His characters in the Home Alone and Richie Rich movies were hugely privileged and largely care-free, but the star's childhood off-screen couldn't have been more different.

Following his meteoric rise to fame, he watched his family slowly fall apart, before going through a painful emancipation from his parents - where he accused his father of leeching off his success.

The actor suddenly stopped appearing in movies and appeared unrecognizable on public outings, before later getting married at 18 and allegedly getting hooked on drugs.

While Macaulay earned millions practically overnight with his role in Home Alone, his family was reportedly very poor beforehand.

According to E! Online, Billy Hopkins, a New York casting director who gave a 6-year-old Macaulay his first part, said: "Macaulay would crawl under the bleachers at the theater to look for change that had fallen out of people's pockets. They were like the Beverly Hillbillies."

At the time it's claimed Macaulay's father Kit had got a job at a local Catholic church, helping him to get staff rates at the parish school, while his wife Patricia worked at a call centre.

However, all that changed when Macaulay began landing major roles in films like Rocket Gibraltar and comedy film Uncle Buck, which eventually led to Home Alone.

It brought him instant fame - along with a rumored $104K (£76,000) pay check for the first movie and £3.4M earnings for the second - and proved enough for Kit to quit his job in the church to help manage his son, alongside his wife.

The movie offers came rushing in and the next Home Alone movie reportedly grossed around $359million (£273M) - followed by more high-paying roles in My Girl and Richie Rich.

Macaulay went on to become the second-youngest celebrity to host Saturday Night Live, aged 11, and he also quickly established a highly publicized friendship with Michael Jackson - which subsequently meant he became caught up in the later child sex scandal surrounding the singer.

Macaulay has always denied anything inappropriate happened, however.

In an interview on the Inside of You With Michael Rosenbaum podcast, he explained how their friendship came to be and said: “A lot of things were happening, big and fast with me and I think he identified with that."

Macaulay's father Kit became hugely prominent in Hollywood too - so much so, Premiere magazine rated him the 48th most powerful person in Hollywood in 1993.

However, as he began to try and take more control over his son's movies, it's claimed his name was blacklisted - particularly when Richie Rich failed to receive the rave reviews of Home Alone.

In 2018, the actor told Marc Maron's WTF podcast that his father was "physically and mentally" abusive and that he was "jealous" of what he had achieved at such a young age.

"Everything he tried to do in life, I excelled at before I was 10 years old," he added.