Corey Feldman & Corey Haim
The Sexual Abuse They Endured As Child Actors.

Show Notes:
*This is not an exact transcript, but rather an outline of my notes.

Hi, I’m Didi West and this is Broken Limelight.

This episode is about Corey Feldman and Corey Haim. It’s also about sexual abuse against children in Hollywood so be advised.

Feldman & Haim were both child actors in the 80’s. Corey Feldman was huge, he was in Gremlins, The Goonies, Stand By Me. Corey Haim was in big movies too like Lucas and Silver Bullet. They both were in The Lost Boys, as well as License to Drive and Dream a Little Dream. They became known as “The Two Coreys” and they eventually did a reality show together as adults called The Two Coreys.

Like many child stars, they both have their share of stories about growing up. But these two had particularly difficult childhoods, as they were taken advantage of by adults in the entertainment industry, and eventually both Feldman and Haim developed serious drug problems.

Before I start, I want to tell you about the book I read while researching. I read Corey Feldman’s memoir, it’s called Coreyography. It was a really good read.

I’m gonna start talking about Corey Haim first. This episode is going to be mostly about Corey Feldman with some Corey Haim sprinkled in. There’s just more information out there about Feldman. Probably because he wrote a memoir.

Corey Haim was born on December 23rd, 1971 in Quebec. Canada. His parents were Judy and Bernie Haim. When Haim was a kid, he was pretty shy so his parents got him into acting classes. One day he tagged along with his sister to an audition, and he was discovered. By the age of 10, he was acting in commercials, and then he got a role in a sitcom called The Edison Twins. When he was 11, his parents got divorced after 18 years of marriage. This was understandably hard on him.

In 1984, Haim made his debut in the feature film Firstborn, which also starred Sarah Jessica Parker, Robert Downey Jr, and Pete Weller.

One day, after a scene, Haim gave Pete Weller a compliment on his acting, and Pete Weller grabbed him and pushed him against a wall and just raged on him. Apparently Pete Weller was a method actor and his character was an abusive, alcoholic stepfather.

In 1986 when he was about 14, he starred in the movie Lucas. Some of his co-stars include Kerri Green, Winona Ryder and Charlie Sheen.

Quick trigger warning, this next part is going to get into the abuse and grooming.

Allegedly, Haim started drinking on the set of this movie. Again he’s 14. An adult male gave him alcohol and convinced him that in Hollywood, it was normal for men and boys to have sex with each other. and this man then poured crisco on the boy's butt and painfully sodomized him.

He would later reveal this to Corey Feldman.

Haim auditioned for the role of Mouth in The Goonies but he lost the role to Corey Feldman.

In 1987, Haim got a role in The Lost Boys, and so did Corey Haim. So this is when they would start hanging out.

Feldman-

Corey Feldman was born in California. He grew up mostly with his mom, Sheila, and his sister, Mindy. His dad, Bob, was seldom around. He was a musician, apparently he was in the band Strawberry Alarm Clock but way after they came out with “Incense & Peppermints” which was like, their one-hit wonder.

Before that though, he was in a band called the Strangeloves. They had like written a couple of songs like, they wrote “I want Candy” and “My boyfriend’s back” for the Angels. Do you guys know that song?

This was during the time of the British invasion so they formed this band as the girl groups were kind of losing popularity and they actually pretended to be brothers from Australia. They made up personas and everything, they called themselves “Niles, Miles, and Giles”.

Corey Feldman’s mom, Sheila was a former playboy model. She was mentally ill and got worse and worse as Corey grew up. She was awful to him. She was known to lock herself in her room a lot for like, the entire day and night. And when she was awake she was pretty erratic. She would go into Corey & Mindy’s room’s in the middle of the night and pick up a single item from the floor and wake them up screaming that their rooms were a mess, and she’d open their drawers and start flailing their clothes around the room and after their rooms looked like a hurricane hit it, she would say “clean up this fucking mess!”

She also constantly fat shamed Feldman and called him ugly from a very young age.

Feldman’s sister, Mindy, was a mouseketeer in a Mickey Mouse Club reboot. His parents did everything they could to get him to work right away.

By the way Sheila denies that and says that Feldman was a ham and was always interested in working in Hollywood, but his first job was a McDonald’s commercial when he was only 3.

He played a little boy who hopped out of bed and left a McDonalds coupon on the plate of cookies for Santa.

Feldman was really excited about this commercial. When he got there, the director was like “today’s a very exciting day, you’re going to meet Santa Clause.”

When the moment came, the commercial just showed Santa’s hand reaching for the coupon. So they didn’t actually dress up a whole guy to play Santa, they just had a guy wearing a red coat sleeve to look like Santa’s arm.

So Feldman was like “when’s the real Santa coming?” and they basically told him he’s coming later, just to avoid a meltdown from a 3 year old.

That commercial did really well apparently, it aired for 8 years.

When he was 5, his sister Mindy was actually a mouseketeer in the Mickey Mouse Club and she would have to go to Disneyland for a couple of weeks a year or so, and his mom sent him with her.

While there, he was like sitting there playing in a dressing room and a casting director walked by and noticed his voice.

Apparently they had all but given up on auditioning kids who could imitate the voice of a hound dog. Corey Feldman had a very deep, raspy voice, even as a young child.

So Feldman ended up being cast for the role of the hound in The Fox & The Hound.

He immediately wanted to meet the kid who played the fox, but was told that it wouldn’t happen because recordings are done individually.

So, this is the second time Feldman been kind of let down by Hollywood, and he’s only 5 here.

Around this time, Sheila would try to lighten Feldman’s hair with peroxide in the sink. She would scrub it into his hair with his face under the running water and she would tell him “you were supposed to be a blonde. This is who you were supposed to be.”

She also fat shamed him as a young boy. She gave him really strict dietary rules and one rule was that he couldn’t eat until she woke up, which sometimes wasn’t until 2-3 in the afternoon. So one day he thought he could sneak a cookie or two and he got caught, and she didn’t let him eat for the rest of the day.

She constantly told him that he was fat and that he was ugly.

She would also force him to stay in his room and practice singing the same song over and over again. It was just her weird disciplinary way of training him to be a singer I guess. She thought it would be adorable.

But he was supposedly a terrible singer and she made sure to let him know that.

When he was 8, he was cast in the show The Bad News Bears.

His parents blew through his money. They bought new cars and a new house. Feldman wasn’t allowed to ride his bike anywhere in this new house because it was like, hilly. And she didn’t want him to get any scrapes because it could affect him getting work. She said “you have responsibilities now.”

One day he decided that nobody would notice if he grabbed his bike for a little bit, and he went off and he ended up losing control down a hill and fell over his bike, end over end. When he got up, he had scrapes and bruises all over his face and hands and the skin on his elbow was gone, and there was blood everywhere.

When he got home, his mom told him “God damnit Corey. You’re going to fuck everything up. I swear to god if that director sends you home tomorrow, I’ll make you wish you were still tumbling down that hill. That’ll feel like nothing compared to what I’m going to do to you.”

So when he got to the set he went straight to the makeup artist and said “please fix this, my parents are going to kill me if I can’t work today.”

When Feldman was about 10, his mom grabbed a pair of scissors and a syringe and basically threatened to give him a makeshift nose job surgery.

She had Mindy help hold him down (and Mindy thought this was just a prank so she was like, cackling) but then Sheila pressed the scissors to his face and said “yup, he definitely needs a nose job” and she would like put the scissors and the syringe at his throat, poking but not piercing his skin. Mindy was finally like “mom stop it” but she didn’t, so Mindy just got up and left the room. Meanwhile Corey’s like sobbing and flailing his legs trying to get out, and Sheila just gets up and walks to her room, laughing to herself.

Corey got booked to be one of multiple kids in an episode of Mork & Mindy. Apparently one of the actors fucked with him a lot and Corey just got heated and punched him, and he got fired. He was terrified of what his parents would do.

When he got home, his mom told him to take off all his clothes and she beat the shit out of him with a solid oak curtain rod. Not a curtain rod, it was more like a stopper so you couldn’t open the window.

And while she beat him she screamed at him “how could you fucking do this to me? You know I need this fucking money. I will kill you. I will fucking kill you, you worthless piece of shit.”

He crawled underneath his little brother's crib and she like, rammed the pole at him. At one point he started thinking, maybe she really does want to kill me. And then he blacks out.

For the next few days she started saying “I’m gonna kill you” like in a sing-song voice. And then she’d go “on Saturday” and she’d wink. And then she’d keep counting down every day.

So on Saturday morning, Corey packed up his shit and snuck out of the house, and he went to the police. They weren’t helpful though.

He ended up back home and shortly before he was cast in The Goonies, he tried to kill himself by swallowing an entire bottle of aspirin.

When the movie ET came out, Corey was offered a role playing the best friend of the main character, Elliot. But Steven Spielberg called Corey personally and told him that they had to cut his role. But he promised that he would be in the next one.

When Corey was about 12, he was invited to come audition for The Goonies which was another Spielberg film. He thought he was in the movie for sure, but when he showed up to his meeting he realized it was a huge cattle call auditioned with a shit ton of people. In fact, Corey Haim was actually there auditioning for the role of Mouth, which was the same role Corey was going for. That was years before they would meet though.

Richard Donner, the director, said to Corey “Tell me why you should play Mouth.”

And Corey went off on this huge rant about how he can play anybody he wants, he was like “you want a cool guy? I can play a cool guy.” and just went on and on, and Richard Donner tried to interrupt and Corey just would not let him.

When Corey finished talking, Richard said “Well I’m not going to argue with you. You definitely seem like Mouth to me.”

Corey was a huge fan of Michael Jackson’s, and when he was in The Goonies, he begged Steven Spielberg every day for weeks to invite him to the set.

In fact, there’s a part in The Goonies where Corey’s like swinging from a water pipe and yells “reverse pressure” and I guess Steven Spielberg couldn’t get Corey to make the right expression. So he said “Corey I’m going to tell you something, and then I’m going to say action.”

When Corey was ready, Steven said “today’s the day, Corey. Michael’s coming to the set.” and then he said “action” and that take ended up being the one they used in the movie.

*hawaii prank against richard donner*

*Stand by me (based on Stephen King's “The Body”- Rob Reiner said that Corey was the one who could make the character’s pain seem believable”. He saw the pain in his eyes.

He smoked weed for the first time with River Phoenix on the set of Stand By Me.

River Phoenix was the brother of Joaquin Phoenix, and by the way, he also had a pretty messed up childhood. I’m gonna do an episode on him in the future but basically, his parents were in a cult called the Children of God, which was known for molesting children and promoting sex with children. River Phoenix’s parents left the cult when they learned about these practices, however, before they got out, River was molested. He grew up and developed a drug problem, and died of an overdose.

It’s kind of heartbreaking how kids like this go into Hollywood, and they’re particularly vulnerable to people trying to be their friend. It’s really sad that grown men like con them into believing they’re friends and then use them for something else.

*friendship with Michael*

He went on the set of the goonies twice. The second time, Feldman told him that he was bummed out that he didn’t see him again the last time, and he asked him if he could call him on the phone. Michael was like “sure.” and corey was like “promise me you’ll call me tonight” and michael was like “ok I’ll call you tonight.”

They eventually would hang out like every couple of weeks and they were pretty close friends. They opened up to each other about their own childhood abuse and according to Corey, Michael never tried anything sexual with him.

Around this time, Corey’s mom started giving him diet pills. She would give him 2 or 3 pills every morning and tell him they were “caffeine” pills, but he was pretty sure they were speed and he started collecting them and selling them at school. By this point he had 2 little brothers who were toddlers. Their names are Eden and Devin. And Bob was their dad too, even though they were separated and Bob was pretty much living out of his car when they were born. Eden and Devin would run into Corey’s room and jump on his bed and say “you’re fat, Corey! You’re ugly!”

One day Corey went into his grandfather’s gun collection and loaded a handgun, and he would hold it to his head and he, like, prayed for the strength to pull the trigger.

By this point, a couple of adult males had already tried to befriend Corey and I guess his grandparents thought it was weird at first, but Corey convinced them that this was just how Hollywood worked.

So this guy named Marty Weiss befriended Feldman. Marty was a child talent manager in his twenties, and he told Corey that he just became friends with Sheila.

He asked Corey if they could hang out sometime and Corey said that his mom doesn’t let him do anything, and Marty was super persistent and insisted that they have a “secret” friendship.

Feldman didn’t have any friends though, so he would tell his mom that he was going jogging (which was the only way he could leave the house) and he would go to the arcade or the mall or something with Marty.

In 1986 when Feldman was 15, he tried cocaine for the first time. He found it in his mom’s room.

He did it again with some random girl-- she was an extra-- and he ended up pulling an all-nighter, and he felt great until about 5pm the next day, when he had to be on set. Feldman was apparently having a lot of trouble working, nodding off and everything. So the director Joel was pissed and finally he was like “where is your on-set guardian?” who was his mom. And Feldman was literally like “I don’t know what to tell you Joel. I saw her last night.”

Feldman actually got fired that day but fortunately, Joel had mercy on him and gave him back his job, but Feldman had to get another guardian.

His father, Bob, offered to be his manager, but he wasn’t able to just drop everything and go to the set right then. So Corey Feldman called Marty to be his guardian.

After the Goonies, Bob became his manager and started his own entertainment company. He hired someone to be his assistant. In Feldman’s memoir, he calls this man “Ron Crimson” but it has since been revealed that this was actually the actor, Jon Grissom, who worked with Feldman & Haim in Dream a Little Dream and License to Drive.

Jon and Feldman would hang out a lot and they found a stash of drugs in Bob’s room. There were all kinds of shit, like Quaaludes and uppers and just a buffet of drugs. So Ron would kind of create like recipes of drug cocktails and Feldman would take them.

Which is kind of fucked up, like. I get that Feldman wanted to get high but you literally don’t know what you’re taking!

They went to this comedy club called “The Store” and they saw Ron Jeremy there. And Ron Jeremy was apparently surprisingly nice. He insisted on introducing Feldman to this girl who wanted to meet him. She was easily 10 years older than him. Ron Jeremy was like “Corey, this is one of the biggest stars in adult entertainment, Ginger Lynn.”

Ginger was 24 and a huge fan of Corey Feldman’s. She flirted with Feldman and they exchanged numbers, and a week later, she picked him up in her Porsche and gave him a blow job in the parking lot of a movie theater.

Feldman was 15.

One day, Jon started molesting Corey. Corey was laying down all drugged up, and Jon laid next to him and started touching Corey’s genitals. Corey didn’t say anything, he froze up and pretended to be asleep, and just waited for it to be over.

This made Corey super uncomfortable, but he was really afraid to lose his only friend. So Ron kept doing this to Corey, and Corey kept freezing up.

One day they both got drunk, and Jon climbed into bed with Corey and took his clothes off. Corey, again, pretended to be asleep, until Jon started rubbing his penis against him. Corey tried to roll over from side to side and kick him away, like kind of still pretending to be asleep and bothered, but Jon was persistent. So eventually Corey just jumped out of bed and ran out of the place.

He still didn’t want to lose that friendship.

When he auditioned for The Lost Boys. He heard that Corey Haim was going to be in the film too. He had heard Haim’s name before and it was beginning to be a pain in his ass. In fact, Corey Feldman was dating a girl, or so he thought, until she told him all about this sweetheart named Corey Haim.

Not long after that, Feldman got a message on his answering machine from Corey Haim. He basically was like “hey man, we’re probably going to be seeing a lot of each other. Wanna hang out?”

And Feldman was like “damn. He is a sweetheart.”

So they hung out and instantly hit it off. They had a ton in common. And it wasn’t long before they started talking about how they had each been abused. Corey Haim revealed to Feldman that he had sex with an older male on the set of Lucas. He told him that this man gave him alcohol and smoked weed with him, and then poured crisco on his ass and sodomized him. He said that this man told him that “this is what men do in Hollywood.” so he suggested that maybe the two of them should be engaging in this, and Feldman was like “no man, that’s not normal.” So Feldman clearly knows that it’s inappropriate for adults to have sex with children, but it seems that Haim didn’t quite understand this.

By the way, the man who abused Haim on the set of Lucas was Charlie Sheen. He was 19 at the time and Haim was 13. Charlie Sheen denies it but Corey Feldman and his ex-wife Susie insist that Haim told them that personally.

I’ve uploaded pics of Charlie and Haim together because it’s just like, a lot to see them together. Charlie Sheen looks like he’s in his prime, heartthrob age of his life, and Haim looks like… a baby. Just, a boy. A young boy. And he probably looked up to Charlie Sheen SO much.

As their friendship progressed, Feldman started noticing that Haim had really intense sexual urges. He would ask Feldman to find him a girl, like “I need a girl right now. I just need someone to get me off” and he would start pestering Feldman to get him off, and he’d be like “come on, it’s normal” and Feldman would just be like “no, man, I’m not into that.”

But Haim was relentless. So one day while they were hanging out with Marty, Feldman remembered a rumor he had heard that Marty was gay. And Feldman said “How about Marty? I hear he’s gay.” He said this as a joke, but Haim looked at him and was like “Is that true?” Marty was just like “Uh I mean I uh.. I like women as much as men I mean”

So Haim and Marty went into the other room and Feldman could hear them like, bumping shit. Feldman instantly felt guilty about this. He knew it wasn’t right.

But he would actually do this again later, with an actor he called Tony Burnham. This is a fake name too, just like “Ron Crimson”. From my research and what I’ve found many others believe is that “Tony Burnham” is actually actor Dominick Brascia. Feldman said that he met Tony on the set of one of the Friday the 13th movies. Judy (Haim’s mom) has also stated that Dominick Brascia abused him.

One day while hanging out with Feldman, Haim would get one of his urges again and start pushing Feldman to call girls over, or to get him off himself. So Haim was like “I know this older guy. He’s kind of fat, not really attractive.” and Haim was like “call him over”. Before long, Tony was tagging along everywhere with Haim.

During the mid 80’s, there was a club for teens that was invite-only. It was growing in popularity; Feldman and Haim hung out there with Alyssa Milano and Alfonso Ribeiro and others from that era. It was called Alphy’s Soda Pop Club and it was run by a guy who Corey called Ralph Kaufman and his father, Bill. This is actually believed to be a casting director named Alphy Hoffman, and his father Bob.

I couldn’t find a lot of information on Alphy and Bob, just that they were father and son. But in the memoir, Feldman says “Ralph used to tell us that Bill was his stepdad, the one who had helped get Ralph into the business. None of that turned out to be true. Bill Kaufman wasn’t Ralph’s step-dad, Bill Kaufman was Ralph’s lover. Together, Ralph and Bill had been working together, coercing young men into their home. I was just the latest in a series of boys to be groomed.

So like I said, these two owned this teen club and Alphy would become friends with all these famous teenagers, and he would invite them to parties at his place, which was often full of adult men.

I have to say something here. Usually I hate when people say “where were the parents”, because I hate when people parent-shame and more often than not, the kids out smarted them. But with Haim? I mean Feldman was on his own. But I couldn’t find much information on Haim’s parents and I don’t understand where his parents and also his on-set guardians in other cases, where were they while Corey Haim was in these situations?

I mean all the kids hung out at Alphy’s, but when he was inviting teens to his parties where there were adult men, even Alfonso Ribeiro-- that’s Carlton from Fresh Prince of Bel Air-- he was the same age as the Coreys and his parents were like “yeah you can’t hang out there anymore”.

So I just have to wonder. Supposedly Haim’s dad was his manager for a while so like, I’d really like to know how present he was.

Well after Feldman had been getting molested by Ron for a few months, he decided he needed a night away, and he stayed the night at Alphy & Bill’s place.

Alphy put on porn and said “is this turning you on?”

Feldman went to sleep and later awoke to find Alphy on top of him, just like he had awoken with Ron on him many times. This time, he was able to deal with it more directly and he pulled up his pants and went home and cried himself to sleep.

He needed a sense of normalcy. So he called Michael Jackson.

Believe me, I do see the irony here. He’s tired of being molested so he calls up Michael Jackson for some comfort. I’m not ready to talk about Michael Jackson just yet so just remember that this is all based on my research into Coreyography.

Feldman says that they hung out and ended up going to Disneyland together. They had a great time but they were too tired to drive home, so they got a hotel. Apparently they just had one little tiny room for the two of them, and when Michael noticed there was only a single bed, he called the hotel’s reception and said “we’re gonna need a cot” and according to Feldman, he insisted that Feldman take the bed and he take the cot.

Feldman also says that while hanging out, he wanted to record a conversation with Michael. Feldman was really unpopular at school and he would try to get coolness points by talking about being friends with Michael Jackson, only nobody believed him.

So Michael saw this giant thing in his pocket and was like “what’s that? It looks like you have a brick in your pocket” and Feldman was like “oh, i almost forgot” and he asked Michael if he could record their conversation, just to have it. Michael said “sure.”

They talked a lot and got really deep, they bonded over their childhood abuse, Michael told him that at nearly 30 years old, he was still afraid of his father. He also told him that after this tour he was getting Feldman for, he was going to retire the sparkly glove and dance moves and change his whole look. Corey was like “not the glove!!!” so he convinced Michael to at least pull out the glove for Billy Jean, or his audience would be disappointed, and Michael agreed.

I think that’s so cute that that’s the conversation that was recorded. I would love to hear that.

Feldman’s dad, Bob, was making really shitty business decisions for Feldman, like basically taking any job out there. He made Feldman do Hollywood Squares and some PBS show. Michael actually tried to help by explaining to Bob that these gigs were for people who are all washed out, not celebrities in their primes, like Feldman. But Bob didn’t listen.

Feldman ended up firing Bob, and then Bob kicked Feldman out of the house. Feldman called Tony/Dominick since he was the only guy who wasn’t molesting him at the time. Dominick lived in the same apartments as Haim, so one day, Haim, Feldman, Dominick, and Ron all ended up hanging out together and doing coke. Feldman says that was one of Haim’s first time doing coke and he felt really guilty for introducing him to drugs.

Feldman decided to file for legal emancipation at age 15, since he can’t live with either of his parents now. It’s a long process and he had to live with Dominick for a while.

Bob demanded $40,000 from Feldman, which was interestingly just exactly the amount he had.

He then lived with Jon and his mother for a while and Jon got Feldman to try crack. After a few months, Feldman decided he needed his own place with a lock on the door.

He got his own place and he let his cousin Michael live with him for free, and Jon would eventually start squatting there too. When he was cast in Dream a Little Dream, he was given the chance to record a song for the film and also choreograph a dance number that would be in the film. So he decided that he was going to try and clean himself up. He wasn’t ready to quit partying altogether but he had consciously made an effort to slow down.

On the set of The ‘Burbs, Carrie Fisher and Joe Dante pulled Feldman aside and told him that he needed to stop going down this path he was headed toward. Feldman was pissed and was like “you don’t know what you’re talking about” because he felt that he didn’t have a problem.

But only like a month later, he was having a hard time filming because he was all coked out and couldn’t stop twitching and fidgeting.

Before long, he got really depressed about a breakup and Jon got him to try snorting heroin.

Still, Feldman was working. Haim was on some kind of self-imposed hiatus, and according to Feldman, Haim was using crack at this time. Feldman went on a trip to film and decided to take Haim with him, mostly to keep an eye on him. While Feldman was working, Haim got himself into a bunch of trouble and all the headlines were saying things like “Two Coreys Disappoint Fans”. He had gone to a high school looking for crack, he commandeered the limo and picked up strangers to party with in the limo, and then he went back to his hotel and trashed it.

So Feldman tried to do Damage Control by doing an anti-drug awareness special, and he saw Drew Barrymore there. This was actually their second time meeting. They went on one of those dates that Hollywood sets up, but Drew was only 10 so they just like, hung out. But now, Drew was 15 and Corey was about 17. So they got together this time. Corey hid his drug problem from her because, believe it or not, at 15, Drew was already a recovering addict herself.

Things didn’t work out and they broke up after just a few months.

In 1988, Haim broke his leg just 4 days before the shooting for Dream a Little Dream would start. Apparently he was teaching his mom how to ride a scooter and she hit a wall and broke his foot somehow.

So they wrote that into the script so he could keep his cast on and walk with a cane and a limp. This is when Haim started using prescription pills.

In 1989, Corey Haim went on the Arsenio Hall show and announced that he was addicted to crack.

The same year, Corey Feldman met Vanessa Marcil. They were totally inseparable, and two months into their relationship, they went to Las Vegas and they got really drunk, and started talking about how in love they are, and they decided to get married.

So they got married, and Feldman was super happy. He was totally smitten and he couldn’t stop grinning. But it occurred to him that they should keep the marriage a secret so that it doesn’t affect his fanbase. Vanessa was like “oh that’s fine with me. It’s not like this is a real marriage anyway.”

And he was like “what?”

She was like “yea we just did this as a joke, because it’d be funny with our friends, right?”

Well they kept dating but she just would not move in with him. He tried and tried to get her to move in but she wouldn’t budge.

In 1991, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie came out. Corey Feldman played the voice of Donatello.

During this time, he was using a lot of heroin.

Feldman was arrested with like 25 balloons of heroin.

He was in and out of rehab for a while but eventually got clean and stayed clean for 2 years, until he was prescribed pain medication for kidney stones.

In 1993, the police contacted Feldman while investigating the allegations against Michael Jackson for sex abuse against children.

Feldman told them over and over again that Michael never did anything inappropriate to his knowledge. He did, however, know somebody else who abused children. But the police never followed up and didn’t ask if he wanted to press formal charges.

In fact, the sheriff's department for years said that they didn’t recall any mention of any men who may have abused Feldman. But in 2017, the tapes were found and it was confirmed that Feldman did indeed tell them about Jon Grissom.

One day, Feldman and his then girlfriend, Susie Sprague, were invited to Michael Jackson’s show, but when they got there, there were no VIP passes for them which was unusual. Suddenly Feldman was separated from his wife and put in a room by security guards, and after waiting around for a while, Michael showed up and told him that he heard Feldman was going to write a book saying terrible things about Michael. Feldman assured him that he has no reason to do that. But Michael wanted nothing to do with him anymore.

The day after that was 9/11/01. And they were stuck in New York. They knew that if they had any chance of getting out of town it would be with the Jacksons. So they tried to board the Jackson bus but somebody was like “sorry, Michael said you guys can’t come with us.” So Feldman's like wtf, like he was stuck in New York just to see Michael. And then Jermaine or somebody was like “listen you guys can come but you can't tell Michael I let you or he’ll kill me.” As soon as they got somewhere where they could get off and rent a car, that’s what they did.

At this time, Haim was selling clumps of his hair and his extracted molars and selling them on ebay. He was in a lot of debt and had an expensive drug habit.

By 2002, Feldman and Haim had kind of fallen out of touch. They were both struggling to find decent work. They were both getting offers to play themselves in movies, but they didn’t want to do that.

In 2003, Feldman appeared in the movie Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star. I fucking love that movie. I just rewatched it today.

Feldman initially was like “nope, you can’t pay me enough.”

But David Spade was getting all kinds of stars for this movie and Feldman hadn’t talked to Haim much over the years at this point, so when he heard that Haim would also be appearing, he agreed to do it.

Shortly after this, Haim started staying with Feldman. A couple days before he got there, Haim’s mom apparently gave Feldman some charcoal pills to force feed to Haim if he was ever overdosing. She insisted that he would need them.

Feldman was approached about a scripted sitcom starring Haim, Feldman, and Feldman’s wife, Susie. And I don't know if it was supposed to be a reality show originally but that’s what it ended up being. They called it “partially scripted” but the idea was like a Me, Myself, and Irene kind of vibe and it ended up getting pretty dark and in-the-moment.

Feldman was worried about this because Haim was apparently a mess at this point. He was totally addicted to drugs and he would just sit around the apartment for months, and he gained like 300 lbs. So Feldman told him about the show and told him that he would only do it if Haim could clean himself up, and Haim agreed.

Haim went to Canada and stayed with his mom until the show started and when he got back, he looked incredible. He had lost weight and was all cleaned up, just as promised.

The Two Coreys aired on A&E from 2007 to 2008. It got really dark and really, really deep. They talked about their abuse. At one point, Haim talks about being abused as a child by an acquaintance of Feldman’s, and he accuses Feldman of knowing about it for two years and like, enabling it.

Haim didn’t stay clean, he became a mess again. Feldman said he was uncomfortable having him in the same house as his wife and kids. There was an argument, and Haim stormed off.

In 2009, Feldman had a rough year. It was the year Michael Jackson died, which came as a shock to him. And he hadn’t spoken to Michael since like, 2001.

He also split up with his wife, Susie.

Haim called him up out of the blue, after a year without hearing from him. Haim told him that he wanted to patch things up. His mom, Judy, was sick, so he moved her in with him. He and Feldman got back together and hung out one day and that was the last time Feldman saw him. The next day, Haim was gone.

In March 2010, Haim was suffering from flu symptoms for a couple of days. His mom, Judy, called a doctor who came and took his temperature but didn’t think anything serious was going on.. Though he did note that Haim got weak when standings and fell to his knees. On March 10th at about 2AM, Judy called 911. Paramedics took him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Initially, they thought it was an overdose because the police retrieved a bunch of prescription pill bottles in his room. He had apparently been doctor-shopping and had obtained like, hundreds of pills.

The autopsy concluded that it was not actually an overdose, but rather complications from pneumonia and an enlarged heart. I can imagine his body wasn’t in good shape because of the drugs, but it was not an overdose.

Feldman did not go to the funeral. He said he didn’t want to bring attention to the family or anything.

Haim never named any of his abusers before he died. He and Feldman talked about it, and Feldman encouraged him to write his own book, but he just wasn’t ready.

Judy Haim called Feldman a liar for accusing Charlie Sheen of abusing Corey Haim. She said that Charlie Sheen never touched him, and rather, Dominick Brascia is the man who abused him.

Corey Feldman now says that both Charlie Sheen and Dominick Brascia abused Haim.

Feldman has spent the last few years trying to bring attention to the problems of pedophilia and child abuse within Hollywood. In 2020, he released a documentary called My Truth: The Rape of 2 Coreys that talked more about the abuse he and Haim suffered.

Regarding Michael Jackson,

Feldman continues to say that Michael never touched him, never did anything inappropriate other than one time when Michael showed him some kind of magazine with pictures of genitals with STDs…. Which is weird?

However, he does say that he believes the victims and even though he didn’t experience it and it's shocking and hard to believe, he listens to the victims and says he’s with them.

Today, Corey Feldman is mostly just working as a musician. He wants to get rid of the statute of limitations in child abuse cases. Though he’s named some of his abusers, he can’t press charges. He says that the statute of limitations has passed and at this point, he would be facing a lawsuit for defamation.

So that’s it for now. Corey Feldman is still out there. Maybe we’ll see him on TV again or something. Maybe not. Either way I hope he’s ok. I mean I know he is, he likes to have birthday parties at Hugh Heffner’s mansion. But I hope he’s happy.

Cases like Corey Haim’s are so sad but he’s not the only one. So many teen actors, particularly from that time, struggled with drug addiction and died. Like River Phoenix, and Jonathan Brandis. If nothing else, I’m glad Corey Feldman was able to clean himself up and survive.

Thanks for listening to Broken Limelight! If you like this podcast, please tell your friends, leave me a review, add Broken Limelight on Facebook! Or add me, Didi West, on Tik Tok or Instagram. Don’t forget to check out brokenlimelight.com for show notes and photos and stuff and for updates on new episodes. You can also find this episodes on YouTube and you can comment on all my episodes there. I’m looking to add that ability to brokenlimelight.com too so I’ll keep you posted.

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Thanks again for listening! Bye.

Who’s who:

Sheila (Feldman’s Mom)

Bob (Feldman’s Dad)

Judy (Haim’s mom)

Ron Crimson/Jon Grissom (Bob Feldman’s assistant who abused Feldman)

Marty Weiss (child talent manager/Feldman’s temporary on-set guardian/abused both Feldman & Haim)

Tony Burnham (actor who molested Haim)/ Possibly Dominick Brascia

Ralph & Bill Kaufman (club owners/Alphy & Bob Hoffman)

Vanessa (Feldman’s first wife)

Susie (Susan Sprague/Feldman’s second wife)