Love is a many-splendored thing, especially when you’re gawking at it from the outside. In this column, we’ll be examining the celebrity couples that give us hope for our own romantic futures and trying to learn what we can from their well-documented bonds.
Given how rough the going can be for child actors later in life, it’s always nice to see people who became famous early enjoy what appears to be a normal, joyful adulthood. That seems to be exactly the case for Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin, who’s been dating The Suite Life of Zack & Cody actress Brenda Song since 2017 and engaged to her since 2022. (There are rumors that the two are actually married, but that’s neither here nor there.)
There’s a lot to love about this couple, who are parents to two sons, but possibly my favorite aspect of their child-star-for-child-star bond is the fact that they can’t stop gushing about each other. “People don’t realize how incredibly kind and loyal and sweet and smart he is,” Song has said of Culkin. “Truly what makes Mack so special is that he is so unapologetically Mack.” She added, “He knows who he is, and he’s 100 percent okay with that. And that to me is an incredibly sexy quality.” (Do I personally find Culkin sexy? Yes, weirdly, if only because he looks so much like his brother Kieran, a.k.a. Roman Roy, who I have a problematique little crush on, but the less said about that, the better.)
Culkin appears to be no less besotted with Song, thanking her in an emotional speech at his recent Hollywood Walk of Fame induction ceremony that I’m just going to quote verbatim: “I’d like to thank Brenda. You’re absolutely everything. You’re my champion, you’re the only person happier for me today than I am. You’ve given me, just, all my purpose, you’ve given me family, and after the birth of our two boys, you’ve become one of my three favorite people. You’re somewhere in there.” Sob!!!!!!!!!
While Culkin and Song’s obvious obsession with each other is clear, it’s pretty much the only thing we know about them as a couple, which is pretty refreshing in this age of celebrity overexposure and constant Instagram hard-launches. I mean, we know they met on the set of a Seth Green movie and remain couples-friends with the actor, which gives me the utmost respect for them (that’s Oz from Buffy, man!), but I have so many lingering questions. Are they Selling Sunset fans or more partial to Real Housewives? Do they favor Erewhon or Moon Juice? Are they nice to their assistants? (Personally, I’m guessing yes.)
