Kieran Culkin Reacts to 'Leaving Neverland' Claims of Child Sexual Abuse at Michael Jackson's Hands

While not as high profile a visitor or friend to Michael Jackson as his older brother Macaulay, Kieran Culkin nevertheless was mentioned in Martin Bashir's landmark 2003 interview with the late pop star. Thus, he wasn't surprised when he found himself facing questions about HBO's "Leaving Neverland" while promoting his own series on the network, "Succession."

The question came at the hands of The Guardian, with the reporter indicating that Kieran was visibly uncomfortable and preceded his comments by emphasizing that he wasn't media trained and no publicist had pre-approved his comments.

And yet Kieran's answer was both thoughtful and respectful to the complexities of the story and the individuals involved.

In the documentary, two men claim that Jackson sexually abused them for many years through their childhood. The documentary is controversial for its one-sided approach to the story, with the Jackson family condemning it and even suing HBO for $100 million over it.

Jackson himself spent the latter years of his life denying all allegations of sexually inappropriate conduct and battled two court cases, settling one and being acquitted in the other.

"The only thing I can say is that I can't really say anything and the reason for that is I can't be helpful to anyone," Kieran told The Guardian.

And because the story is such a mess, Culkin seems to believe that if new input doesn't serve to strengthen one side or the other, it's best not to further muddy the waters.

"To me, it seems like there's two sides to this thing and because I can't be helpful on one side or the other, anything I say and anything that gets put out in print could only hurt somebody and there's already a lot of really hurt feelings," he said.

"There are already a lot of people who are in a difficult position and if I contribute in any way, it's just going to hurt someone because I can't actually help."

Unfortunately, he didn't go any further in his statement, nor did he expand on his own relationship with Jackson when he was younger. Macaulay, though, did open up a bit during an appearance on Michael Rosenbaum's "Inside of You" podcast in January.

"He reached out to me because a lot of things were happening, big and fast with me and I think he identified with that," Macaulay said of Jackson sparking their friendship shortly after his "Home Alone" success, as detailed by ET. "At the end of the day, it's almost easy to say it was weird or whatever, but it wasn't because it made sense. At the end of the day, we were friends."

Macaulay was firmly on Jackson's side, insisting that their friendship was "normal" and "mundane." They simply connected over this shared experience of having achieved superstardom at such a young age.

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