In the news that should make any ‘90s kid feel old, Macaulay Culkin is a father. The 40-year-old Home Alone star and his long-term partner, Brenda Song, welcomed a baby boy on Apr. 5, according to Esquire. Dakota Song Culkin came into the world last Monday, weighing in at 6 pounds, 14 ounces. The child was named in honor of Macaulay’s late sister, Dakota, who passed away in 2018. Brenda gave birth to the bundle of hoy in Los Angeles, and both mother and child are doing well. “We’re overjoyed,” Brenda and Macaulay said in a statement to the publication.
Brenda and Macaulay began dating in 2017, the Party Monster actor revealed to Esquire in 2020. The couple met in Thailand on the set of Changeland, a “funny, moving story about friendship” directed by Mac’s longtime friend (and frequent collaborator) Seth Green. They moved in together and started a life full of domestic bliss. “They wear matching pajamas,” reports Esquire. “Song bakes bread—she was baking bread long before the pandemic. They have animals: three cats (the youngest is one he got her for Christmas 2019, named Santa), a few fish, a Shiba Inu, and a blue-headed pionus, which is a parrot.”
When Mack revealed that he and Song were together, he also shared they were starting a family. “We practice a lot,” he told Esquire. “We’re figuring it out, making the timing work. Because nothing turns you on more than when your lady comes into the room and says, ‘Honey, I’m ovulating.’ ”
“People don’t realize how incredibly kind and loyal and sweet and smart he is,” Brenda told Esquire. “Truly what makes Mack so special is that he is so unapologetically Mack. He knows who he is, and he’s 100 percent okay with that. And that, to me, is an incredibly sexy quality. He’s worked really hard to be the person he is.”
As with much of Macaulay’s life, his triumphs are twinged with tragedy. His newborn’s namesake was killed in a 2008 car accident, per ABC News. Dakota was walking in LA when, after stepping off a sidewalk, and was struck by an oncoming vehicle. It was, as described by Macaulay’s spokesperson at the time, a “terribly tragic accident.” The LAPD said that the driver of the car “stopped, rendered aid, and identified himself as required by law. Detectives have determined that the driver was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol, so no crime was committed.”