For reference, Kit quit his job to manage Macaulay’s career when he first started to find success in the ’80s. In a 2001 interview with New York magazine, Macaulay said that his dad was “always abusive, but it didn’t get really, really, really bad until later on.”
Recalling one instance in particular, he said that his dad denied him a bed to sleep on in an apparent power trip. Macaulay explained: “I was making God-knows-how-much money, and Kit was making me sleep on the couch, just because he could. Just to let you know who’s in charge and just to let you know if he doesn’t want you to sleep in a bed, you’re not going to sleep in a bed.”
In the same interview, Macaulay also said that Kit would physically abuse him, his mom, and his six siblings.
He doubled down on this during a 2018 appearance on the WTF Podcast with Marc Maron, where he said: “He was a bad man. He was abusive, physically and mentally — I can show you all my scars if I wanted to.”
Over the years, Macaulay has shared that his father kept booking him onto acting projects despite him begging for a break, and revealed he was only able to step away from acting at 14 because his dad was tied up in a custody trial amid his split from Macaulay’s mom, Patricia Brentrup.