April 15 (UPI) -- Home Alone 2 director Chris Columbus is expressing his regret over President Donald Trump's cameo appearance in the 1992 film starring Macaulay Culkin.
"Years later, it's become this curse. It's become this thing that I wish it was not there," he told the San Francisco Chronicle.
In the Home Alone sequel, Culkin's Kevin McCallister stays at the Plaza Hotel, and asks Trump for directions.
"We approached The Plaza Hotel, which Trump owned at the time, because we wanted to shoot in the lobby. We couldn't rebuild The Plaza on a soundstage," said Columbus in a 2020 interview with Business Insider. "Trump said, 'OK.' We paid the fee, but he also said, 'The only way you can use the Plaza is if I'm in the movie'... He did bully his way into the movie."
Trump apparently contested Columbus' claims, saying that Columbus was, in fact, "begging" him to make an appearance.
"What's going through this guy's mind? He said I was lying. I'm not lying," Columbus told the San Francisco Chronicle. "He said I begged him to be in the movie, but there's no world I would ever beg a non-actor to be in a movie. But we were desperate to get the Plaza Hotel. But it's there. It's become an albatross for me. I just wish it was gone."
Columbus also directed the original Home Alone (1990). His other films include Mrs. Doubtfire, Stepmom, the first two Harry Potter movies and Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.
