Director Chris Columbus says a seven second cameo by Donald Trump in his 1992 movie Home Alone 2 Lost in New York is a “curse” that he wishes he could remove.

Columbus, who directed the first two Home Alone movies, as well as the first two of the Harry Potter films, told the San Francisco Chronicle of his regret at Trump’s involvement.

“[It’s] become this curse,” he said. “It’s become an albatross for me. I just wish it was gone.”

Despite his regret, Columbus joked he was too scared to cut Trump out.

“If I cut it, I’ll probably be sent out of the country. I’ll be considered sort of not fit to live in the United States, so I’ll have to go back to Italy or something,” he said.

In Home Alone 2 Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin McCallister accidentally boards a flight to New York instead of accompanying his family on their Christmas vacation to Miami.

Alone in New York, Kevin finds himself in the Plaza Hotel where briefly meets then property mogul Trump, who he asks for directions.

In an interview with Business Insider in 2020, Columbus said that Trump – who owned Plaza Hotel when the movie was made – basically “bullied his way into the movie”.

“We paid the fee, but he also said, ‘The only way you can use the Plaza is if I’m in the movie’,” Columbus was quoted as saying.

“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’.”

Since Trump became US president in 2016, and again in 2024, Home Alone fans have called for his removal from the movie.

Culkin went viral for backing an online campaign to get Trump out of the film.

Responding to a tweet from a fan that read “Petition to digitally replace Trump in Home Alone 2 with 40-year-old Macaulay Culkin,” the actor wrote: “Sold.”

As calls for Trump to be cut gathered support, the then-deposed president claimed on his Truth Social platform in 2023 that Columbus was “begging” him to appear in Home Alone 2.

“I was very busy, and didn’t want to do it,” Trump wrote.

“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,” his post read.

“Nothing could be further from the truth. That cameo helped make the movie a success … Just another Hollywood guy from the past looking for a quick fix of Trump publicity for himself!”