'She was thoroughly unimpressed by me.' How Brenda Song and Macaulay Culkin's love story came to life.

Macaulay Culkin and Brenda Song became famous as child stars, and now they share two children of their own.

The public has been obsessed with their relationship ever since it began because… I mean, it's London Tipton and Kevin McCallister, we're talking about here. Two childhood icons.

And it seems the prospect of this match is trippy, even for Song herself.

"There was a point in time where I was like, 'I must be in a simulation! I have two children with Macaulay Culkin!'" Brenda said in a joint interview with Cosmopolitan.

In recent years, Song and Culkin have gradually become more comfortable sharing their relationship with the public eye. So much so that Culkin even made a surprise cameo in Song's new Netflix series Running Point.

Song and Culkin have been more public with their relationship the last few years. Image: Getty.

In the ninth episode, Culkin appears as an angry fan at a Los Angeles Waves basketball game, hilariously heckling a character who interrupts Billie Eilish's scheduled national anthem performance.

According to Song, the cameo wasn't initially planned as a significant moment.

"He pitched himself," Song revealed in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. "It was meant to just be him in the back of a scene as an Easter egg for us... And then, of course, it slowly snowballed."

She jokingly added, "Knowing Mac, he could never just be in the background."

During their Cosmopolitan interview, Culkin and Song shared that they had met for the first time in 2014 at actor Seth Green's home, following the cancellation of Dads, the short-lived FOX sitcom he starred in alongside Song.

And first impressions are not always correct, because Song "was not having it" when it came to Culkin's humour.

"She was thoroughly unimpressed by me is what I will say," Culkin said.

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But, fate would have them meet again in 2017 when they reunited to shoot Changeland, an indie film Green directed and filmed in Thailand. And as the two grew closer, what started as a fling quickly became something much more.

The couple told Cosmopolitan that during a late-night chat, Brenda shared that if she ever had children, she'd prefer a gender-neutral name like "Dakota."

Culkin was shocked.

"I was like, 'I'm going to name my firstborn 'Dakota,'" he recalled during the interview.

Little did Song know that the name held deep significance for Culkin: Dakota was the name of his older sister, who passed away in 2008.

Watch: Macaulay Culkin and Brenda Song in an interview with Cosmopolitan. Post continues after video.

They now have two children: Dakota, named after Culkin's late sister, and a second child, Carson.

Given the couple's private nature, we only learnt about Carson's existence because Kieran Culkin confirmed it during promotion for Succession.

But in a 2020 profile for Esquire, Culkin had shared the pair were at that point trying to have a baby.

"We practice a lot," Culkin, now 44-years-old, joked.

"We're figuring it out, making the timing work. Because nothing turns you on more when your lady comes into the room and says, 'Honey, I'm ovulating.'"

Song told The Cut in 2022 that she and Culkin were "very hands-on" parents.

"We don't have a nanny, but my mum has been here with us since my son was born.

"When I was working, my mum would bring [my son] to set so I could breastfeed and see him during the day. People tell you a lot about labour and pregnancy, but not about the fourth trimester," Song said.

Song started her acting career as a teenager on the Disney Channel, starring in The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. Most recently, the 36-year-old has starred in Gia Coppola's film The Last Showgirl, which has received plenty of praise during awards season.

Next, she'll be appearing alongside Kate Hudson in Running Point, a Netflix comedy series set against the backdrop of the NBA.

Culkin, who has worked on-and-off over the years, has just signed on for season 2 of the drama Fallout on Prime Video.

When it comes to their life together, Culkin and Song are endlessly supportive of each other and their careers.

"I believed in her. I mean, I believed in people before, but I believed in her down to my bone marrow," Culkin said.

Speaking to Entertainment Tonight in 2019, Song shared that growing up in front of the camera was "one thing" she bonded with Culkin over.

"It's almost like child actors… don't even have to talk about it," she said. "You just look each other in the eye and you nod and we know."

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Speaking to Esquire's Ryan D'Agostino, Song sang her husband's praises.

"People don't realise how incredibly kind and loyal and sweet and smart he is," she said.

"Truly what makes Mack so special is that he is so unapologetically Mack. He knows who he is, and he's 100 per cent okay with that. And that to me is an incredibly sexy quality. He's worked really hard to be the person he is."

Song also said that she hoped Culkin would get back into acting in the future.

"I truly believe that he is the actor he is now because of all the things he had to go through," she said.

"He has gone through so much tragedy; he's had so many ups, so many downs; he's seen the ugly side of this industry; he’s also seen the amazing side of this industry.

"So, he can pinpoint exactly what he doesn't want and what he doesn't like about it. But yeah, I hope, I hope, I hope."

Prior to dating Culkin, Song was previously engaged to Miley Cyrus’ older brother and Metro Station musician, Trace Cyrus. The former couple separated in 2012 after seven years together.

Over the years, Culkin has had a number of high-profile celebrity relationships…

Rachel Miner

Image: Getty.

Rachel Miner and Macaulay Culkin first met when Miner moved to the Home Alone star's school.

When Miner first introduced herself to the notable teenager, she considered the actor to be a stuck-up jerk. But after getting to know each other, the pair soon became close friends.

After performing in a music video for the band Sonic Youth together at 17 years old, the pair began dating and just a few months later, Culkin proposed.

At 18 years old, Culkin and Miner were married in a casual outdoor ceremony at a Connecticut home. Rather than sending a traditional invitation, the pair sent out clues to an elaborate scavenger hunt, which sent guests to the wedding location.

In 2000, two years after their wedding, Culkin and Miner "temporarily separated". They finalised their divorce in 2002.

Miner later admitted: "Ultimately, the marriage was a choice made with our hearts, not with our heads".

Mila Kunis

In May 2002, Macaulay Culkin began dating actress Mila Kunis. At the time, Culkin was 21 years old and Kunis was 18.

Over the eight years they were together, Culkin and Kunis worked hard to keep their relationship relatively private.

In an interview with Women's Health in 2009, two years before the split, Kunis said her relationship with Culkin changed her life.

"We grew up together," she said at the time. "You find a steady rock in your life and that's all you need. We have our ups and downs, but work through them."

Kunis later admitted their young age impacted the state of their relationship, adding: "I don't know if I met him at 27 if it would have been a different relationship."

During an appearance on The Howard Stern Show in 2016, Kunis reflected on how going out in public with the actor wasn't easy.

"He was huge. You couldn't walk down the street with him," she recalled.

"He always had this weird attraction, like fans just screamed when they saw him. They didn't know how to react. It wasn't like a normal response to a celebrity. Fans responded in a very abnormal way."

In 2011, amid Culkin's self-imposed retirement from acting, Culkin and Kunis split.

Although representatives of the couple claimed the split was amicable, Kunis has since admitted it was a "horrible, horrible breakup".

In an interview with Dax Shepard on his podcast, Armchair Expert, Kunis admitted that she "f***ed up".

"I was an arsehole in my 20s, and I'll be the first to admit it. And that's something that took me a long time to come out and be like, 'Yeah, you know what, I was a dick,' and accept it and I own it," she said.

Kunis said she blamed herself for the breakup, and told the host that becoming single was an awakening for her.

"When I got to be single I said, I just need to figure myself out. I genuinely need to know why I did what I did and, like, regroup myself as a human being."

Nine years on from their split, Kunis added that she's now kinder to herself about the situation.

"You know, it's been so long, like I feel like enough time has gone by," she said. "I think enough mutual friends have been like… everybody kind of forgave everybody for what went down. At 35, I could look back and be like, 'I was 20.'"

Kunis is now married to 46-year-old actor, Ashton Kutcher. The pair share two children – daughter Wyatt and son Dimitri.

For more on this topic:

"He never did anything to me." Inside Michael Jackson and Macaulay Culkin's friendship.

7 kids and no doors: Inside the bizarre upbringing of Macaulay and Kieran Culkin.

OMG. Macaulay Culkin just recreated what Home Alone would look like in 2018.

This article was originally published on February 12, 2020 and has been updated.

Feature Image: Getty.