Macaulay Culkin seemingly laughs off Michael Jackson sexual abuse scandal

Macaulay Culkin has seemingly poked fun of the damning documentary Leaving Neverland about his friend Michael Jackson.

In a surprising move, the Home Alone star laughed off a new wave of sexual abuse claims against the late King of Pop, heralded by choreographer Wade Robson and former child star James Safechuck in the two-part series.

According to The Sun, 38-year-old Culkin addressed the allegations during a live taping of his podcast Bunny Ears on Wednesday, asking his singer-songwriter guest, 'Weird Al' Yankovic, if Jackson had ever been inappropriate towards him decades ago.  

"I'm going to ask you a very serious question: what was your relationship like with Michael Jackson?" asked Culkin, before bursting into laughter on stage.

"Um, mostly platonic," Yankovic -- whose real name is Alfred Matthew Yankovic -- laughed back. "I met him two or three times, he was pretty sweet to me."

"Sounds amazing, he sounds really cool, yeah..." Culkin deadpanned before revealing that he and Jackson would often watch Yankovic's parody music videos at the singer's Neverland Ranch in Santa Barbara, California. At the time, Yankovic had parodied Jackson's hits including 'Beat It' and 'Bad'.

"I will say he was a huge, huge fan of yours. Yes, he always had your videos kind of playing constantly," shared Culkin. "There you go, validation. Praise. Hail, Caesar!"

Culkin had the full support of Jackson's daughter Paris Jackson, who was backstage during the live podcast and heard the entire exchange. The 20-year-old -- who is also Culkin's goddaughter -- perhaps even welcomed the actor making light of the situation.

"Y'all take my life more seriously than I do," she tweeted in the days after Leaving Neverland was released.

"I know injustices are frustrating and it's easy to get worked up," she wrote in another tweet. "But reacting with a calm mind usually is more logical than acting out of rage and also.... it feels better to mellow out."

Culkin has long maintained his relationship with Jackson was never inappropriate. During a chat with actor Michael Rosenbaum's podcast Inside of You, Culkin said that they simply bonded because they both rose to fame quickly as child stars.

"[Michael] reached out to me because a lot of things were happening, big and fast with me and I think he identified with that," he said. "At the end of the day, it's almost easy to say it was weird or whatever, but it wasn't because it made sense. At the end of the day, we were friends."