It’s been over 30 years since the release of Home Alone 2: Lost In New York, and a lot has changed. The holiday classic, which is among the best movies streaming on Disney+, follows Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin McCallister as he’s once again left out of a family trip, this time in New York City. Kevin uses his father’s credit card to live a temporary life of luxury at the Plaza Hotel, where he runs into Donald Trump for the now-memorable scene filmed 15 years ahead of Trump’s ascension to the presidency. How that cameo came about has been a point of mild contention.
Years after Donald Trump first laid claim that he was begged to make a cameo in the film, and that it wasn’t his idea, the film’s director Chris Columbus spoke out about what actually went down in a recent interview with Vanity Fair. Columbus opened up about making a number of beloved Christmas movies over the years, and was asked about the billionaire’s unforgettable cameo in the Home Alone sequel, and whether the incumbent president had asked to be in the movie at the time.
Columbus confirmed that was not the case, but that it was in fact a stipulation for the production to film in the iconic Plaza Hotel, which Trump owned at the time. Columbus explained:
The only way we could get to shoot in the Plaza Hotel was that Trump had a cameo… So we gave him the cameo. I said to my crew, ‘We’re going to cut this. We can always cut it.’ We ended up previewing the movie. Trump was basically just a real estate celebrity in Manhattan. And he comes onscreen and the place applauds and cheers. So we kept it in. And it stayed in forever.
At the time, Trump had more widespread support as a cultural figure and from his real estate contributions to the city of New York, and nobody had reasons to petition to have him removed from the Home Alone sequel the way others did years later. The mogul ownership meant he could decide which film productions were allowed to use it as a set. Replicating the Plaza any other way would’ve been a tall order for the film’s crew, as the hotel is one of the most iconic in New York and has a signature look to it. Opting to shoot elsewhere would have completely changed the feel of the film, so obliging Trump was in the best interest of the film.
Columbus noted that over the years Trump has denied demanding a cameo in Home Alone 2, but the director asserted that this was indeed the case. When the 45th president publicly claimed that the production begged him to be in the film, the filmmaker decided to keep his mouth shut, so as not to escalate the conflict further. He said:
Trump said that it was a lie, that he never asked for a cameo, that we begged him to be in the movie. . . . I was about to respond, and my wife said, ‘You know what? Stay out of it.’ It’s like, I’m not going to get in a fight over Home Alone. There are much bigger battles to be fought.
No matter who you choose to believe in this situation, the cameo scene stayed in the movie, cemented in movie history forever. Trump has proudly appeared in cameo roles in a number of other movies as well including Two Weeks Notice, Little Rascals, and Zoolander. Trump’s frequent cameos and media appearances made him a cultural figure well beyond what most New York real estate tycoons were. Watching the films in hindsight makes his presence seem even larger, and such cameos are impossible not to note whenever a rewatch happens.
You can revisit Donald Trump’s Home Alone 2 cameo by streaming the film now with a Disney+ subscription.