In separate social media announcements, two very different yet divisive figures attempted to put to rest some rumors about their roles in the 1992 film, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. In one case, alleged phone hacker and TV host Piers Morgan denied that he donned drag to play a role in the 31-year-old movie. And in another, indicted former president Donald Trump claimed that he was begged to appear in the film, even though his busy schedule made that cameo a burden.
We’ll begin with Morgan, a deeply problematic person who—thanks to the low bar set by a certain aspiring dictator—comes across as a cool guy by comparison. So here’s the deal: Since 2018, when son Spencer Morgan jokingly tweeted that his dad played Home Alone 2‘s iconic Pigeon Lady, the rumor has circulated that underneath that hat and wig, we’ll find Morgan as a kind of proto-Mrs. Doubtfire.
When one looks at a photo comparison of the two, one can see where the joke began, but of course, it’s nonsense. The Pigeon Lady, an unhoused woman who helps free Macaulay Culkin’s character, Kevin, from the movie’s villains, was played by Academy Award winner Brenda Fricker, a former Irish Times journalist and the first Irish person to win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar (for her role as Bridget Fagan Brown in My Left Foot).
While Morgan, an arguable former journalist himself, didn’t credit Fricker for her work in the film, he did remind followers that the rumor that he played the Central Park resident is false. Morgan, who would have been a 27-year-old tabloid reporter at Home Alone 2‘s release, tweeted “It’s Not. Me.” regarding the claim, Mediaite reported this morning. It’s a concise response compared to the one Morgan made in 2020, when, per the Independent, he was confronted with the ongoing conflation while on Good Morning Britain. “Why does this keep coming around? That is not me,” Morgan said then through a laugh. “I am not the bag lady in Home Alone 2.”
2020 is also the year that Home Alone 2 director Chris Columbus first claimed that the then-outgoing president had “bullied” his way onto the set of the movie, in which he has a cameo. Speaking with Business Insider for the 30th anniversary of the first Home Alone film, Columbus said that for Home Alone 2, “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.”
“Trump said OK,” Columbus said “We paid the fee, but he also said, ‘The only way you can use the Plaza is if I’m in the movie.’ So we agreed to put him in the movie, and when we screened it for the first time the oddest thing happened: People cheered when Trump showed up on-screen. So I said to my editor, ‘Leave him in the movie. It’s a moment for the audience.’ But he did bully his way into the movie.”
Why the remarks from this three-year-old interview captured Trump’s recent attention is anyone’s guess. After all, it’s not like he’s ever been accused of being thin-skinned, or of holding a grudge! But for whatever reason, the former president took to his social media platform, Truth Social on Wednesday, to put those extremely important, three-year-old allegations to rest.
“Thirty years ago (how time flies!), Director Chris Columbus, and others, were begging me to make a cameo appearance in Home Alone 2,” Trump began. “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. 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. Now, however, 30 years later, Columbus (what was his real name?) put out a statement that I bullied myself into the movie.”