Macaulay Culkin Is Home Alone, For Real

We hate to say "we told you so." But who didn't predict that former child actor Macaulay Culkin, 19, and his wife Rachel Miner, 20, would split up?

The New York Post and Daily News are reporting the "temporary separation."

"It is very amicable and they remain the best of friends," Culkin spokesman Paul Bloch told the Post.

Culkin, star of the 1990 blockbuster movie Home Alone, and actress Miner, who has appeared on Sex In The City, were 17 when they got married on Father's Day, 1998.

They met at the Professional Children's School on West 60th Street in Manhattan. Miner, the daughter of acting teacher and soap opera director Peter Miner, began acting on The Guiding Light soap when she was nine. She landed a part in Woody Allen's 1996 movie Alice and later appeared on Broadway in The Diary of Anne Frank.

Miner is said to have a big heart for animals. The couple at one time owned African gray parrots, ferrets, several dogs, cats, and rabbits. As a present to her when they got married, Macaulay made a large donation to an animal shelter.

"They really do love each other very much. They're always holding hands,"family friend Mary Lynn Blanks Supino told CBS.com. "I've never seen them argue. She's always reaching out to hold his hand. They're very affectionate, very loving. I’m shocked. My guess is they just had a fight."

Once the hottest child actor in Hollywood, Culkin's career has been dormant for several years, although he has been trying to revive it lately.

In recent years, his family has been beset by problems. His parents, Christopher "Kit" Culkin and mother, Patricia Brentrup, were involved in a difficult custody battle over Culkin and his six siblings.

In 1998, a fire that started in the Culkin family's Manhattan apartment spread and killed four people in the building.

Despite these crises, Culkin's brother Kieran has continued to act in movies, most notably Cider House Rules and Music of the Heart.

Culkin and Miner owned a large apartment in Soho, which they had gutted and redone. It was only recently finished.

"I'd like to think it'll blow over and they'll work things out," said Blanks-Supino. "I think their love is genuine. I see the look in their eyes. It's inspiring."