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SANTA MARIA, Calif. — Macaulay Culkin was a young boy when he met the adult superstar Michael Jackson, but he said they were kindred spirits from the start, having both been thrust into the show business spotlight at a young age.
Culkin described the relationship Wednesday at Jackson’s trial, adamantly denying that the pop star had ever touched him inappropriately and dismissing the molestation charges against Jackson as “ridiculous.” He acknowledged sleeping in Jackson’s bed several times between the ages of 10 and 14 — sometimes with other boys as well.
The pair’s real bond was in shared experiences as child stars, said Culkin, who was just a boy when his wide-eyed role in “Home Alone” made him a household name.
“One day I’m just a normal kid who was an actor, and the next day people are hiding under bushes trying to take your picture,” the 24-year-old Culkin said, appearing relaxed and confident during less than 90 minutes of testimony. “You can’t find other people who have been in these circumstances.”
Culkin said he knew that he and Jackson were “part of a unique group” and it was “a very comforting thing.” When he spoke about how “profiteers” were out to get him, he said, Jackson understood because “he had lived through it.”
Culkin confidently rejected suggestions that he might have been molested during his sleep without knowing about it and dismissed a prosecution display of sex magazines seized from Jackson’s home, saying he used to keep Playboys under his own bed as a kid.
When defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. asked Culkin if he was ever molested by Jackson, he replied, “Not at all.”
Culkin was the third young man to testify at Jackson’s trial that as boys they slept with Jackson at his Neverland ranch and weren’t molested.
Culkin became part of the case when prosecutors were allowed to present testimony to suggest Jackson has a pattern of abusing boys. The testimony included an ex-chef who said he saw Jackson with a hand up Culkin’s shorts as Jackson held the boy up to a video game.
The young actor said he only learned of the allegations made about him when someone told him he should watch CNN.
Jackson, 46, is accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy in 2003, giving him wine and conspiring to hold the boy’s family captive to get them to rebut a documentary in which Jackson told an interviewer he let children sleep in his bed but it was innocent.
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Culkin testified that he and Jackson were drawn together by their common experience as child performers, although he laughingly noted that “it was not like a child actors’ self-help group.” Godfather to two of Jackson’s children, Culkin has appeared in such Jackson productions as his “Black or White” music video.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen suggested Culkin could have been molested while he was asleep at Neverland.
“I find that unlikely,” Culkin said. “I think I’d realize that something like that was happening to me.”
The prosecutor also asked if Culkin would have slept with Jackson at age 20.
“Probably not,” said Culkin. “As you get older you begin to enjoy your privacy.”
At one point Culkin described Jackson as “very childlike.”
“He liked doing the things we did. He liked playing the arcade games although he wasn’t as good as we were,” he said, drawing laughs.
Slideshow: Michael Jackson trialProsecutors seized on the “childlike” comment and another about how guests in Jackson’s room were free to look at memorabilia.
The prosecution has shown the jury dozens of sexually explicit magazines found in his room during a November 2003 search, and have alleged that Jackson showed the material to his accuser and the boy’s brother.
Asked if he thought it was childlike to have such material, Culkin said, “When I was 12 or 13 years old I had a couple of Playboys under my bed.”
Culkin’s testimony was followed by a key decision in which the judge allowed the defense to play a videotape in which Jackson spoke of his love for children. The jury heard Jackson say, “They need to be held and loved and told somebody cares.”
Culkin himself faces a court hearing next month on two misdemeanor drug counts in Oklahoma City. He was arrested Sept. 17, 2004, after police alleged found more than a half-ounce of marijuana and several tablets of the prescription medication Xanax in a car in which he was a passenger.
© 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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