Macaulay Culkin Recounts Dangerous Experience on ‘My Girl’ Set

Macaulay Culkin has recently shared a frightening experience he faced while filming ‘My Girl’ at just 10 years old.

The former child actor, known for his role as Thomas J. Sennett in the cherished family film, revealed that he was required to work closely with live bees during a pivotal scene where his character meets a tragic end. Culkin spoke about this harrowing incident during a November 25 episode of his podcast, “On Film… with Kevin McCarthy.”

“I worked with bees,” Culkin said. “They actually released thousands of bees on me. Just try to imagine it. I’m serious—those were real bees. They can’t fly now, right?”

He further added, “If you had it done the way they did back then, you wouldn’t get away with it today,” emphasizing the recklessness of the situation.

Culkin explained that they had applied a queen bee scent to his fingertips to keep the bees from seeing him as a threat. “I was actually drawn to my hand,” he noted.

McCarthy was taken aback by this revelation and encouraged Culkin to elaborate.

“No, no, no, they’re really bad bee guys,” Culkin remarked.

He recounted receiving numerous warnings about being cautious when dealing with the bees. “They’d tell me not to touch anything because one time I touched my pants and boom! They were attracted to me,” he said.

The actor recalled the difficulty of following the advice to make a quick getaway from the bees after each take, which seemed nearly impossible for a child his age.

“As soon as they yelled ‘cut,’ I was showered in hot, soapy water. Boom! I did that, wiped it off, and ran out into the woods,” he explained.

He was given some advice from a beekeeper: “You can run faster than a bee can fly.” Culkin couldn’t help but think, “But I’m 10 years old. How fast do you think I can run?”

“They smoked a lot of bees!” he insisted. “We did four takes.” Despite all this, he mentioned that he didn’t get stung. “I felt a needle in my neck. It didn’t break because I hadn’t been stabbed,” he gestured while speaking.

Culkin also discussed a scene that involved a real alligator, suggesting it could have been staged in a pool instead. “They were throwing bees at me and there were alligators everywhere,” he described the chaos on set. “Some of them don’t even fly anymore.”