Culkin: Cold feet?

Washington, May 8: Macaulay Culkin, the former child actor, is reconsidering his offer to testify on behalf of Michael Jackson in the singer’s trial on molestation charges.

At the halfway point of the trial, the Home Alone star, who is now 24, had been expected to take the stand tomorrow for the defence.

Culkin had appeared in the video for Jackson’s song Black or White in 1991 and has expressed public support for the star.

His advisers, however, would prefer him to steer clear of the trial and the actor is believed to have been unnerved by the ferocious cross-examinations to which other alleged victims of the singer have been subjected.

If Culkin decides against appearing, it is possible that other stars will still agree to testify, injecting some showbiz glamour to the case.

Jackson’s lawyer, Thomas Mesereau, is considering asking actor Elizabeth Taylor and singers Diana Ross and Stevie Wonder to vouch for his client’s character.

After 10 weeks of lurid prosecution evidence, the singer’s defence began last Thursday after Mesereau failed to have the charges against him dismissed. Instead, Mesereau sought to refute claims that Jackson had a track record of fondling boys, including Culkin. The actor has consistently denied that he was abused by Jackson.

Last Thursday, two young Australian men told the court that, as boys, they had often shared a bed with Jackson on visits to Neverland, his ?fantasy paradise? in California. They insisted that he had not molested them.

The next day, their mothers said they saw nothing wrong with their sons sleeping with Jackson. ?I trusted him implicitly,? said one.

Mesereau is not expected to risk putting his volatile client on the stand and expose him to cross-examination. It is a reflection of the bizarre nature of the case that the defence hopes that evidence he shared a bed with young boys will help persuade a jury to clear him.

Although Judge Rodney Melville rejected the defence motion for the case to be thrown out, prosecutors consistently failed to land a knockout blow on Jackson.