Kieran Culkin was nearly out of time when he got to the most memorable part of his Oscars acceptance speech.
“Please don’t play the music because I want to tell a really quick story,” he said, referring to the showrunners' practice of forcing winners off-stage with a music cue.
Culkin, who won the 2025 Oscar for best supporting actor, then described winning an Emmy in 2024 and how he’d spent part of that acceptance speech talking about how his wife, Jazz Charton, promised a third kid if he brought home an Emmy.
“She said that because she didn’t think I was going to win,” he said.
Culkin noted that after the 2024 Emmys, Charton confirmed her past promise as they walked to their car.
“She goes ... ‘I guess I owe you a third kid.’ And I turned to her and I said, ‘Really, I want four.’ And she turned to me ... this was just over a year ago and said, ‘I will give you four when you win an Oscar,” Culkin recalled.
At this point in the speech, as members of the audience laughed and applauded, the camera cut over to Charton who was smiling and covering her face.
Also visible was Culkin’s co-star in “A Real Pain,” Jesse Eisenberg, who looked genuinely shocked by the story.
The camera then returned to Culkin, who said he and his wife had shaken on the deal last year.
“I just have this to say to you, Jazz, love of my life, ye of little faith — no pressure, I love you, I’m really sorry I did this again, and let’s get cracking on those kids. What do you say?” Culkin said before walking off stage.
Kieran Culkin speech
Culkin’s remarks, which came during the first 30 minutes of Sunday night’s Oscars broadcast, earned praise on social media, including from conservative commentators who often take issue with what celebrities have to say about family life.
“If we return to a Hollywood where men use their acceptance speeches to joke w/ their wives about having more babies instead of women using theirs to praise abortion for their success Hollywood could be great again,” wrote Christian author Megan Basham about Culkin’s speech on X.
Similarly, Charlie Kirk, the founder and CEO of Turning Point USA, celebrated Culkin’s “pro-family acceptance speech.”
“The Oscars are mostly garbage, but this moment between Kieran Culkin and his wife Jazz is great. This is the most pro-family acceptance speech you’ll hear from Hollywood. Get married. Have kids. Lots of them,” Kirk wrote on X.
Kieran Culkin’s family
Culkin, 42, married Charton, 36, in 2013, according to Newsweek.
Together, they have “daughter Kinsey Sioux, born in 2019, and son Wilder Wolf, born in 2021,” the article said.
During interviews before and after Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony, Culkin talked about how much he loves his family and how his concerns about being away from his kids nearly led him to walk away from what became an Oscar-winning performance.
“It was just the way the schedule changed right before we started, it was taking me away from my kids for almost a month,” he said, per E! Online.
He added, “I was like, ‘Well, I don’t want to do that.’ Then I got talked into it, which, obviously, I’m very glad that I was.”
Culkin is famously the brother of Macaulay Culkin and appeared alongside him in “Home Alone.”