SANTA MARIA, Calif. — Actor Macaulay Culkin defended Michael Jackson on the stand Wednesday, saying that the allegations against his "childlike" friend were "absolutely ridiculous."

"Did Mr. Jackson ever molest you?" defense attorney Thomas Mesereau asked.

"Never," Culkin replied.

"Did Mr. Jackson ever inappropriately touch you?"

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"Absolutely not."

"Did he ever touch you in a sexual way?"

"No."

"What do you think of these allegations?"

"I think they're absolutely ridiculous."

Jurors listened intently during Culkin's testimony, and some even smiled at the puckish 24-year-old "Home Alone" star as he entered the courtroom. Jackson remained stonefaced, never overtly acknowledging Culkin, who called the singer a "close friend" to this day.

Culkin is the third defense witness to testify that he was not a victim of inappropriate sexual overtures by Jackson during childhood visits to Jackson's home. Prosecutors say he was one of five boys who the singer molested more than a decade ago. Jackson was never charged in those cases, and two of the accusers received multimillion-dollar payments from the singer in exchange for their silence.

His current trial stems from charges that he gave alcohol to a 13-year-old cancer survivor and sexually molested him in February and March 2003.

A former cook at Jackson's Neverland Ranch testified for the prosecution that he once delivered French fries to the video arcade in the middle of the night and saw Jackson with a hand down Culkin's shorts. A former maid said she saw Jackson inappropriately pat Culkin's rear end.

Culkin said he was incredulous when he learned about the testimony after a friend told him to turn on CNN.

"It was one of those things. I couldn't believe it, first of all, that people were saying these things," Culkin said. "At the same time, it was amazing to me that nobody asked me. They didn't even double-check it. They didn't even ask."

Culkin told jurors that prosecutors never contacted him about the accusations of former Neverland employees, but during cross-examination he conceded that his attorney had released a statement saying he would not give interviews to either side before testifying.

He insisted, however, that he was unaware that investigators had continuously tried to reach him in 1993 and in 2003, but were rebuffed.

He also attempted to play down the fact that there were a "handful of times" in which he spent the night in Jackson's home alone with the singer in his bed.

"I slept in his bed as often as I fell asleep anywhere," Culkin said, calling it a "casual thing."

"That was part of the fun of the place. There were no rigid rules about where or when you could fall asleep," he said, adding later that he always slept in his clothes and was never naked or in pajamas.

The waiflike actor wore a coy smile, a blond ducktail haircut, a slightly rumpled black suit, and a white pinstriped dress shirt. During 40 minutes of rapid-fire questioning from the prosecution, he remained breezy and unflappable.

Culkin called Jackson "childlike," saying that the singer would play along with him and his siblings in games of tag, water-balloon fights and video games.

"Your answer more accurately, then, is he never molested you to your knowledge while you were awake?" prosecutor Ronald Zonen asked.

Culkin raised an eyebrow, asked if he would repeat the question, and responded, "As far as I know, he never molested me."

Bonding over childhood fame

The strange relationship between Jackson, then in his 30s, and Culkin, an internationally famous 10-year-old boy, began when Jackson called him one day, seemingly sympathetic to the challenges of being a child star.

"He kinda called me out of the blue one time: 'Hey, this is Michael Jackson,'" Culkin said, adding that "Home Alone" had just hit theaters.

"One day I was essentially a normal kid who happened to be an actor, the next day I'm just this thing ... people were hiding in the bushes and taking pictures. The next thing you know is you have thousands of acquaintances but no friends," Culkin said.

Jackson told him, "I think I understand, and I'd like to get together and talk," according to Culkin.

Culkin visited Neverland, with his family in tow, "more than a dozen times" between the ages of 9 and 14. The visits tapered off, he said, because he was living in New York until after he turned 17, when he visited a few more times, the last being about a year ago.

"He never pressured me to do anything at all. Not even go to sleep at the right time or eat my veggies," Culkin said of being given free rein at Jackson's 2,700-acre playground.

Over the years, Culkin said, Jackson would come to New York to see him and his siblings, treating them to movies and once an after-hours shopping spree at the toy store FAO Schwarz.

About a year into their friendship, Culkin said, Jackson joined him on a trip to Bermuda with the family of Culkin's childhood friend, Barak Goldstein.

Jackson tagged along for the entire week and then followed the family to Orlando.

Prosecutor Zonen suggested that Jackson invited himself on the trip and that the Goldstein family felt alienated by the singer's presence, at one point telling Culkin he was not to be alone with his adult friend.

Culkin said he did not recall any such conversations.

Prosecutors charge that Jackson has a pattern of "grooming" boys he has allegedly molested. For instance, he is accused of buying the boys' families lavish gifts, telling the children they are like family to him, and creating special bonds with the boys, while excluding their family members.

Culkin said that, after the Bermuda trip, Jackson gave him a gold Rolex watch, engraved "From Michael Jackson" with the year 1991 or 1992.

Jackson also gave a gold watch to his current accuser, bought his family gifts, and took them on a shopping spree at Toys R Us.

Culkin countered that Jackson had boundless generosity, often handing over his own possessions if asked.

He denied prosecution clams that Jackson kept boys locked up in his bedroom at night or excluded the families from the bedroom. There was an open-door policy at Neverland, he said, and guests could roam wherever they liked, even rifle through the closets to look at memorabilia.

Prosecutors found numerous pornographic magazines and erotic bondage figurines in Jackson's home during a November 2003 search, and Zonen asked Culkin whether a man who possessed sexually explicit magazines could be accurately depicted as childlike.

Culkin asked him to repeat the question several times, finally answering, "I don't think there's anything wrong with having those things. He's a human being. Human beings possess these things. I don't find it inappropriate."

'Jesus Juice'

In addition to the sexual molestation charges, Jackson is charged with conspiring to hold his accuser and his family captive at Neverland after a damaging documentary, "Living with Michael Jackson" showed him in a loving embrace with the boy.

In court Wednesday, the defense played documentary outtakes, which were filmed simultaneously by Jackson's own film crew.

In the outtakes, documentarian Martin Bashir appears to be making manipulative overtures to Jackson, gushing over the singer's talents, his home, his relationship with his children — presumably in exchange for Jackson's frank talk and full access.

Jackson can be heard quoting Scripture, denying indulgence in plastic surgery, and waxing poetic about love, peace, his own loneliness and seeing God in the faces of little children.

At one point, after Bashir makes a remark about not liking to fly because of the drunken passengers, Jackson asks him if he is averse to "a little bit of Jesus Juice, a little bit of wine?" Jackson also confirms in the video that he does not drink alcohol.

The accuser has said that Jackson gave him wine in a Diet Coke can, and called it Jesus Juice. Jackson denies he has ever given children wine.