‘Home Alone 2’ director calls Donald Trump cameo a curse

Like Kevin McCallister with the Wet Bandits, Home Alone director Chris Columbus just can’t escape that Donald Trump cameo in the sequel.

Columbus said the cameo from the former real estate tycoon has been “an albatross for me” and that he “wishes it was gone,” in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.

The president appears briefly in 1992’s Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, passing by Macaulay Culkin’s precocious Kevin in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel and pointing him in the direction of the concierge.

“I can’t cut it. If I cut it, I’ll probably be sent out of the country,” Columbus, who has Italian ancestry, quipped, referencing the Trump administration’s recent string of unlawful deportations. “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 previously revealed that Trump, who at the time of filming owned the Plaza Hotel, only agreed to let production film on the property if he could be featured in the movie in some capacity.

“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,” Columbus told Business Insider in 2020 in a retrospective celebrating the film’s 30th anniversary.

Trump caught wind of the comments, claiming on Truth Social that Columbus and the crew “were begging” him to make the cameo. “I was very busy, and didn’t want to do it. They were very nice, but above all, persistent,” Trump wrote. “I agreed, and the rest is history!”

Columbus has since responded to those claims to the Chronicle. “He said I was lying. I’m not lying,” the filmmaker said. “He said I begged him to be in the movie, but 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.”

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly‘s free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

At the time, though, the cameo was received positively. “We screened the film in Chicago, and when that moment came onscreen the audience went crazy,” Columbus recalled. “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. Years later, it’s become this curse. It’s become this thing that I wish it was not there.”

“But it’s there,” Columbus added. “It’s become an albatross for me. I just wish it was gone.”

Regardless, the sequel — centered on Kevin McCallister as he’s once again separated from his family, this time finding himself in New York while his family is en route to Florida for the holidays — was a blockbuster success, grossing more than $358 million worldwide against a $28-million budget.