'Home Alone' Star Recalls Running $7,000 in Booze on Trump's Tab
It sounds like presumptive third-time GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump got more than he bargained in exchange for a cameo in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York; the 1992 sequel to the popular Christmas comedy. In his forthcoming Simon & Schuster memoir, Home and Alone, star Daniel Stern recalls running up quite the bar tab after Trump offered to pick up his drinks.
In an excerpt of the book obtained by Page Six, Stern writes that aside from Trump's cameo, "his real contribution was letting us film there, lending the luster of the [Trump Plaza] to the movie."
The 66-year-old recalled that the producers of the film had asked him to meet Trump, who was supposedly a "huge" fan. However, Sterns notes that while Trump "was not a great conversationalist" and "kind of a nothing personality," that the meeting "paid off brilliantly" regardless.
During production one night, The Wonder Years narrator recounted how he was having drinks with some crew members in the Plaza's famed Oak Room when Trump walked in with his wife at the time, the late Ivana Trump, and began "waving to the guests and wanting to have his picture taken."
"Donald spotted us and proclaimed so everyone could hear that he would be picking up the tab at our table," Stern writes. He said that as Trump walked away, his table lifted their glasses and toasted to the future president so he would feeling like "the host-with-the-most."
However, the group quickly abused the gesture, drinking "until there was no more booze left in that bar" and buying "round after round of drinks" for their fellow bar patrons. They then proceeded to shut the bar down, staying until 4 a.m. All in all, while there has been some confusion about exactly how much of Trump's money they spent, Stern estimates the figure to be at least $7 thousand.
"We still feel really good about that," Stern added, given that Trump has since become a polarizing figure in American politics.
In a 2020 interview with Business Insider, Home Alone director Chris Columbus claimed that fame-obsessed Trump actually "bullied" his way into a cameo in exchange for letting the crew film at the Plaza. (Trump has since denied the claim in a post on his Truth Social platform.)
"We wanted to shoot in the lobby. We couldn't rebuild The Plaza on a soundstage," Columbus said at the time, and instead agreed to pay Trump a standard fee for filming in the Manhattan high-rise.
"We paid the fee, but he also said, 'The only way you can use the Plaza is if I'm in the movie,'" he continued. "So we agreed to put him in the movie." It's unclear whether Columbus intended to leave the cameo in the finished film, but felt as though his hands were tied when a test audience reacted favorably.
"People cheered when Trump showed up on-screen," Columbus added. "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."
Perhaps he did, but apparently it was not without a cost. In any case, Home and Alone hits shelves on Tuesday, May 21.