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Macaulay Culkin had a tearful reunion with his on-screen mother at a ceremony to unveil his new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The former child star of ‘Home Alone’ and its sequel was honoured at the unveiling by Catherine O’Hara who played his mother in both films in the 1990s.

In a heartfelt speech, O’Hara reflected on watching Culkin become a huge, worldwide star when he was just 10 years old.

“Home Alone was, is, and always will be a beloved global sensation,” she said. “The reason families all over the world can’t let a year go by without watching and loving Home Alone together is because of Macaulay Culkin.”

Home Alone was an enormous box office hit at the time of its release in 1990, making $476.7 million (around €437m). Culkin and O’Hara both returned for the sequel Home Alone 2, set in New York City, in 1992. Both have since become cult films – and essential Christmas viewing for many.

“Yes, he had a most excellent script and a wonderful director,” O’Hara added, paying tribute, “But it is Macaulay’s perfect performance as Kevin McCallister that gave us that little every boy on an extraordinary adventure.”

Addressing Culkin, she said: “I know you worked really hard, I know you did, but you made acting look like the most natural thing in the world to do. It was really as if we’d ambushed this real little boy named Kevin to make a movie and he just went along with it for the fun of it.”

She went on: “I believe you’d have to possess a certain quality, a gift, that dear John Hughes obviously recognized in you Macaulay, your sense of humour. It’s a sign of intelligence in a child and a key to surviving life at any age. From what I see, you have brought that sense of sweet yet twisted, yet totally relatable, sense of humour to everything you have chosen to do since Home Alone.”

The pair then embraced, with Culkin wiping away tears and O’Hara thanking him for including “your fake mom that left you home alone not once but twice” at the ceremony.

Natasha Lyonne, who starred alongside Culkin in 2003’s Party Monster, also spoke at the ceremony. “Mac, I’m so proud of you,” she said.

“I remember our first meeting, at a bar on the Lower East Side. It was down some stairs in the back, at some random, no-name, who-cares spot. We were about to start filming a true crime film about the Michael Alig murders in the ‘90s rave scene of underground New York. You played Michael Alig, I was playing Brooke, someone in your inner circle. We clocked each other and I remember thinking: ‘That’s my friend.’ And we were.”

Other attendees included Culkin’s partner Brenda Song and their two children, his siblings Rory and Quinn, Party Monster co-star Seth Green and his Goddaughter Paris Jackson.