Following Michael Jackson’s sexual abuse scandal, Macaulay Culkin has maintained his support for the late singer.

In a new cover feature for Esquire, the 39-year-old actor recounts his friendship with the late King of Pop, as well as long-running claims that he was one of those allegedly molested by Jackson.

“Look, I’m gonna begin with the line—it’s not a line, it’s the truth: He never did anything to me,” Culkin, 39, said of his friendship with Jackson, who was in his 30s when Culkin was a child star. “I never saw him do anything. And especially at this flashpoint in time, I’d have no reason to hold anything back. The guy has passed on.”

Culkin added, “If anything—I’m not gonna say it would be stylish or anything like that, but right now is a good time to speak up. And if I had something to speak up about, I would totally do it. But no, I never saw anything; he never did anything.”

Culkin, the star of several films including Home Alone, was one of the lads who spent time with Jackson as a youngster. Culkin still refers to him as a buddy and serves as the godfather of Jackson’s daughter, Paris.

Macaulay Culkin (L) and Paris Jackson | CREDIT: SOURCE: PARIS JACKSON/INSTAGRAM

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Allegations of child sexual abuse against Jackson first surfaced in the 1990s, and he was charged and acquitted in Santa Barbara County in 2005. Last year, the two-part documentary “Leaving Neverland,” was aired, which included a couple of men who claimed Jackson sexually assaulted them.

The last time he and Jackson, who died in 2009 at the age of 50 from a heart attack, saw each other was in 2005, during the People v. Michael Jackson trial, in which the latter was eventually found not guilty, but their relation still haunts Culkin to this day, prompting questions from other celebrities. He told Esquire that when the shocking documentary Leaving Neverland was out, he ran into James Franco on a plane, who asked him how he felt about it.

Macaulay Culkin (front) and Michael Jackson in 1991 | CREDIT: ERNIE MCCREIGHT/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

“I give him a little nod as we’re putting our bags overhead. ‘Hey, how you doing?’ ‘Good, how ya doing?’ And it was right after the Leaving Neverland documentary came out, and he goes, ‘So, that documentary!’ ” Culkin recalled. “And that was all he said. I was like, ‘Uh-huh.’ Silence.”

“So then he goes, ‘So what do you think?’ And I turned to him and I go, ‘Do you wanna talk about your dead friend?’ And he sheepishly went, ‘No, I don’t,’ ” he continued. “So I said, ‘Cool, man, it was nice to see you.’ ”

Jackson and Culkin met in the early 1990s, after the actor’s breakthrough in the 1990 film Home Alone. They became close friends, especially because Culkin’s stardom had isolated him from his peers. Jackson was one of the only individuals who understood what Culkin was going through and, according to Culkin, wanted to protect him at the end.

Macaulay Culkin (L) and Michael Jackson | CREDIT: KEVIN KANE/WIREIMAGE

“He reached out to me because a lot of things were happening, big and fast with me. I think he identified with that,” the actor remarked in January 2019 on Michael Rosenbaum’s Inside of You podcast.

“I was a peerless person,” Culkin continued. “Nobody else in my Catholic school had even this much idea of what I was going through and he was the kind of person who’d been through the exact same frickin’ thing and wanted to make sure I wasn’t alone in that.”

This isn’t the first time the kid actor has defended Jackson.

On an episode of “Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum” last year, he discussed his bond with the King of Pop.

“It’s almost easy to try say it was ‘weird’ or whatever, but it wasn’t, because it made sense,” Culkin reasoned. “It’s one of my friendships that people question, only because of the fact that he was the most famous person in the world.”

Culkin also said during the interview that he auditioned for Quentin Tarantino’s film Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, however it didn’t go well.

“It was a disaster. I wouldn’t have hired me,” he said.

“I’m terrible at auditioning anyway, and this was my first audition in like eight years.”