rewrite this title Brenda Song and Macaulay Culkin ‘Connected’ Over Shared ‘Trauma’ They Experienced as Child Actors

“It wasn’t one of the first things we connected on, but I think there was this unspoken understanding that we’ve had certain trauma that we both share that we didn’t even quite realize stems from us being child actors,” Song shared.

During Monday’s all-new episode of the Sibling Revelry podcast with Kate and Oliver Hudson, which featured the second part of an interview with the 36-year-old actress, Song opened up about the connection she felt with Culkin when they first met.

“It wasn’t one of the first things we connected on, but I think there was this unspoken understanding that we’ve had certain trauma that we both share that we didn’t even quite realize stems from us being child actors,” Song shared. “Certain anxieties or stressors or even triggers that you don’t realize. You don’t realize as a kid, how much that affects you as an adult.”

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While she said that she and Culkin have had “very different” experiences thanks to his Home Alone stardom, Song — who called her other half “the most famous child actor in the world” — was very much a star in her own right, working regularly as a child actress before getting widespread recognition in 2005’s The Suite Life of Zack & Cody and the 2006 Disney Channel Original Movie Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior.

Song said as she and Culkin got to know each other after they began dating in 2017, it was “fascinating” to see how different their experiences were.

“[It] impacted how we look at our relationship with the industry now, how he looks at it and how I look at it,” she said. “I always say, like, I’ve been in this business for 33 years, and I still love it. Something must be wrong with me.”

“It’s also been really nice, though, to have someone who truly just really understands,” Song added of her relationship with Culkin. “He gets what I do on a different kind of level, and it’s been so nice. I’ve never had that before.”

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While she has been in the business for decades, Song said before Culkin, she hadn’t dated another actor.

“I was not a cool girl. I was such a little nerd who sat at home,” The Last Showgirl star, who labeled herself a “late bloomer,” said. “Working so much as a kid, I just loved being home so much.”

She also revealed that Culkin was the first boyfriend she ever brought home to her family, and now, the pair have a family of their own.

The pair first met in 2014, after Song worked with mutual friend Seth Green on the TV show Dads, but didn’t start dating until they filmed the indie movie Changeland, share two children, Dakota, 3, and Carson, 2. They went public with their engagement in 2022.