Macaulay Culkin took the stage at the 2026 Emmys and for one second became that boy again whose fictional mom forgot him on every family trip.
It was September 14, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, when Culkin stood alongside Annie Murphy and Dan Levy for the In Memoriam segment dedicated to Catherine O’Hara, who died on January 30 at age 71. Culkin couldn’t resist the joke everyone was expecting: he recalled that O’Hara played his forgetful mother in both Home Alone movies, the woman who literally left him home alone.
“She may have forgotten me twice”, Culkin said to the audience, “but we will always remember her”. The phrase perfectly summed up what O’Hara represented for several generations: an actress capable of making people laugh and feel moved in the same gesture. Murphy and Levy, her co-stars on Schitt’s Creek, added their own tributes to a woman who won two Emmys and left an indelible mark on comedy.