Daniel Stern, best known as one half of the clumsy criminal duo from the Home Alone films, is facing serious legal fallout after being hit with a criminal charge linked to an alleged incident last month.
According to court documents cited by the Daily Mail, the 68-year-old actor has officially been charged with a misdemeanor count of soliciting prostitution.
The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office filed the charge on Monday, and Stern is expected to be arraigned at 9:00AM Tuesday.
However, TMZ reports that prosecutors don’t anticipate the actor appearing in person - his lawyer is expected to attend in his place.
Police previously cited Stern following an alleged attempt to hire a sex worker at a hotel in Camarillo, California. He was not booked or photographed at the time, but was issued a citation.
From slapstick stardom to rural retreat
Stern rose to fame playing the iconic role of Marv Murchins in Home Alone (1990) and its sequel Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), opposite Macaulay Culkin and Joe Pesci. But in recent years, he’s stepped away from Hollywood entirely.
Now living on a farm, Stern has taken up a totally different lifestyle. He grows tangerines, works as a cattle rancher, and even spends time sculpting.
The actor opened up about his departure from the spotlight in December, confirming he’s fully embraced his quiet life away from the screen.
His return to headlines follows a health scare in October. TMZ reported that Stern was hospitalized on October 7 after a medical emergency at his home in Somis, California.
Firefighters responded and transported him to a local hospital. Though the cause remains unclear, his rep later confirmed he was in good health.
Stern opened up about pay disputes during ‘Home Alone 2’
In his memoir Home And Alone, Stern gave fans a behind-the-scenes look at the money struggles he faced during negotiations for the sequel.
After the first movie became a box office smash, the studio came back with a $600,000 offer - double his previous salary, but not nearly what some of his co-stars were making.
He wrote: “I asked if that was the same as Joe [Pesci] was getting, and they said it was not.”
Stern said he later found out Pesci was earning between $2 million and $3 million, plus a cut of the profits. Macaulay Culkin, who was just a child at the time, reportedly landed a $5 million deal along with 5 percent of the gross box office earnings.
Stern wasn’t happy with the offer and eventually fired his agent. “It was a prideful thing to do,” he recalled, “but if that was the best he could do for me, then he wasn’t very good at his job.”
Ultimately, he agreed to the role not just for the paycheck, but for personal reasons. He told the Los Angeles Times: “There’s lots of things I get out of the movies besides money.”