20th Century Fox/Disney
Prior to being a twice-impeached President and indicted alleged felon, Donald Trump was a part-time C-list celebrity who would host reality TV shows, pop up in the WWE, and make cameo appearances in movies.
One of the more notable cameos that Trump made was in the 1992 film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, which saw him cross paths with Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin McCallister in the lobby of The Plaza Hotel in New York City.
And according to Trump, that movie — a sequel to one of the highest-grossing movies of the 1990s (17th place) and one of the most beloved Christmas films ever made — was such a success because he was in it for a grand total of six seconds:
“That cameo helped make the movie a success,” he recently said.
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York cost $10 million more and made $100 million less than its predecessor.
“They rented the Plaza Hotel in New York, which I owned at the time. I was very busy, and didn’t want to do it. They were very nice, but above all, persistent,” Trump wrote on his self-funded social media app Truth Social, which currently has about 600,000 monthly users (for comparison, Twitter has about 365 million monthly users).
“I agreed, and the rest is history! That little cameo took off like a rocket, and the movie was a big success, and still is, especially around Christmas time. People call me whenever it is aired.”
Trump’s version of events, of course, contradicts that of director Chris Columbus, who said in a 2020 interview with Business Insider that the former Democratic party member and current Republican frontrunner “bullied” his way into the movie by saying the only way they could film in the lobby of The Plaza was if he was in it.
“Now, however, 30 years later, Columbus (what was his real name?) put out a statement that I bullied myself into the movie. Nothing could be further from the truth. That cameo helped make the movie a success, but if they felt bullied, or didn’t want me, why did they put me in, and keep me there, for over 30 years? Because I was, and still am, great for the movie, that’s why! Just another Hollywood guy from the past looking for a quick fix of Trump publicity for himself!” Trump said in the rest of his Truth post.
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York isn’t the only project that Trump cameoed in, as he also appeared in Zoolander, The Nanny, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Drew Carey Show, Sex and the City, Days of Our Lives, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, and The Little Rascals.