I need to talk about Corey Haim, the toxicology report, and the overwhelming inaccuracies vastly and irresponsibly reported by the worldwide media machine. On March 10th, the day of Corey’s death, on my Larry King interview , I warned the media and the public at large to not draw conclusions or jump to accusations until the toxicology reports came in. There was a reason for my aggression at that time. Reasons that I could not disclose at that time but can disclose now. The reason being that I had a conversation with Judy earlier that afternoon in which she confirmed to me the sequences leading up to the moment of his death. I already knew in my heart that Corey did NOT die of a drug overdose!!! But I needed the hard facts to back it up for legal purposes. So I have had to remain silent until now. However the results are in, the toxicology reports are back, and the TRUTH will prevail!
As per the County Coroners office as of today April 4th 2010……. COREY HAIM DID NOT DIE FROM A DRUG OVERDOSE!!! The cause of his death was natural. He had a combination of pneumonia, and heart failure which came as a result of a lifelong history of heart problems. Corey was born with an arrhythmia of the heart….an irregular heart beat. If you go back to the first season of the Two Corey’s you will find there is an episode where I took him to the doctor to check out his heart. That was REAL! Corey woke up that day and told me in confidence that he was scared because he was having considerable pains in his chest. I told him that we must get him to a doctor to investigate his condition before we continued filming. He suggested that we bring the cameras with to openly document his problem and so we did. It’s all there, if you go back and watch it you will see that this problem had been there for a long time.
Here is the history for the record: at the beginning of season 1 Corey was 100% clean and sober! He was doing great. He dropped his weight, he was healthy and happy. We shot hours and hours of unscripted comedy which I feel was the best improvisational comedy we had ever done together. A and E network currently owns and controls that priceless footage, and I hope and pray that for the sake of the fans they pull it from their vaults and release it for all to see. It was awesome stuff! However towards the end of season 1 Corey relapsed. during that time period Susie and I did everything we could to support him getting back on track. Including making a historical clause in my contract with Warner Brothers that I would not do LB2 without his involvement. I also took Corey into my home (off camera) and allowed him to stay with me during the marketing campaign in hopes that he could get it together again. We then had a falling out, based on the fact that he was incapacitated at my home in the presence of my child. That was the final straw for Susie and I. We could not submit our child to that. Shortly after he backed out of his committment to Warner Brothers and failed to shoot his parts in the sequel.
At that point I felt our friendship was in serious jeopardy and it was impossible to continue on with our working relationship and the show was to end. At that time it was suggested by Corey that the show continued, with the added aspect of showing his actual struggles with his addiction as opposed to further hiding it from the public. Although I was not in favor of the approach as I felt it was too risky, I begrudgingly agreed. The show continued on with our relationship strained. Corey once again got himself cleaned up. The first half of the second season began with Corey sober. As it was well documented on the show, the pressure became too much for him to bear and halfway through the season he relapsed again, the day we scheduled the pick up scenes for Lost Boys. I was devastated by this. I spent the remainder of the season trying to get him sober again. My attempts failed, culminating in a very public closure to both the friendship and partnership of “The Two Corey’s†I vowed to no longer enable him by endorsing his abuse by remaining his friend/business partner.
I made a public statement in which I said the show was over and I would not speak with him again until he cleaned his life up and took responsibility for his actions. I kept my word. Corey and I had no contact for over a year, the longest we had gone without speaking since 1986. When Michael Jackson, Marc Rocco, and my grandfather died, Corey reached out to me to offer his support. At that time he informed me of his mother’s illness and the responsibility he took in caring for her. I heard something different in his voice….maturity!
It was this new found sense of responsibility and dedication to his own recovery that initialized our reconnection, and opened the door to us continuing our friendship. I knew that for the first time in his life he was clean, and it wasn’t just about proving something, but instead about putting his duties as a man first. He wanted to be there 100% for his mother at her time of need. I was told by Judy that in the days leading up to his death he had been put on some antidepressant medications but he was no longer abusing drugs. I believed her as in the last 6 months of his life I was talking or texting with him on a daily basis and he was with me and my son at my house 3 or 4 days a week. He was not out of his mind on drugs anymore. He was winning his battle with addiction. Unfortunately his growing heart problems, and large amounts of stress, coupled with years of damage from previous drug use ultimately led to his demise. The news is still sad and the outcome remains the same, Corey is gone, he’s never coming back. But the one thing we all now have is the knowledge that this time around, he wasn’t lying. He really made a difference in his way of life.
I hope that his story can serve as inspiration and hope for those who are currently struggling with addiction. I am so proud to say that he died sober. I truly hope in the coming days the media takes responsibility for its actions and rethinks their actions of condemning people before the facts have been told.
It is so sad that Corey Haim was finally getting his life back in order and his heart and pneumonia ended his life. I am glad that Feldman was able to explain what his good friend’s last few years were like and that we learned he was try to straighten up his life. Too bad he didn’t get to show us before he was taking away from us way too soon..
