“You know,” he said, leaning closer, “my girlfriend is an incredible singer, and Corey was really supportive of her talent. I think he really would have wanted her to sing a song at his funeral.”
I couldn’t believe this guy had the balls to pitch me for a spot
in a funeral
. It was grotesque, and so incredibly surreal. And just when I thought things couldn’t get any weirder, in walked Warren Boyd.
More than twenty years ago now, when I first decided to get sober, I enlisted the help of a man named Bob Timmins, a former addict-turned-addiction specialist, better known in Hollywood circles as “Dr. Detox.” Timmins had become an expert at matching addicts with sponsors or “sober companions,” often testified on behalf of his clients in courtrooms across L.A., and was constantly consulting on treatment plans for drug-addled (and usually famous) defendants. He had helped guys like Steven Tyler, Vince Neil and Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe, and Robert Downey, Jr. get themselves sober. If you were a celebrity with a spiraling drug problem, Bob Timmins was your man.
I always figured Warren Boyd had an eye on taking Timmins’s place, but to me he seemed more interested in giving interviews and socializing with celebrities than keeping anyone’s nose clean. Whenever Corey ran out of money, Boyd up and disappeared. The last I heard, he was buzzing around again when we began production on
The Two Coreys,
filling Haim’s head with grand plans about coproducing additional shows. (Boyd had his own short-lived show called
The Cleaner,
a fictionalized portrayal of his life as an “extreme interventionalist,” that aired on A&E.) That was more than two years ago. Now, with Corey dead and the press sniffing around, here was Warren Boyd again, right by Judy’s side.
“We’ll put together a memorial service,” he was saying, “and I’ll invite all my high-end clients. Whitney Houston, Mel Gibson, only the AA-list people. We’ll do it in a studio backlot, so no one will have any access to it.”
Why the hell would Whitney Houston come to Corey Haim’s memorial service?
I thought
. What the fuck is this guy talking about?
“Corey didn’t know any of those people,” I told him. “I don’t think that’s what he would have wanted.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” he said, pacing the length of the apartment. “Why don’t you give me a list of people that you think should be there, and I’ll have my list, and Judy will have her list, then we’ll put it all together. When all is said and done, I’ll try to take care of a few of your people.”
My
people
? I couldn’t believe this guy—I half-expected him to point two finger guns at me and suggest that we “do lunch.”
“Lemme get this straight. You want to have a private memorial for two hundred to three hundred guests and you’re going to fill a room full of famous people, none of whom actually knew him?”
“Or we could do a fund-raiser?” he continued blabbering.
I started gathering my things to leave. The guy was just on and on about this celebrity and that celebrity, the president of this studio and the president of that studio. I wasn’t sure if he really knew any of these people, but I had had enough—and I was due to tape
Larry King.
* * *
Larry wasted no
time asking me if I thought drugs were to blame for Corey’s death, and I wasted no time imploring people to stop rushing to judgment. “Until the coroner’s report comes out, until we know exactly what the toxicology report says, nobody knows,” I told him. I also talked about how—despite the recent outpouring of emotion—practically no one had been around for Corey when he was actually still alive. Five years earlier, he had no work visa, no work, no money, and almost no friends. His life was in the gutter, and nobody seemed to give a shit about him then.
When the cameras stopped rolling, Larry leaned forward to ask me one final question: “Do you really think the toxicology report is going to come back clean?”
“Yeah, I do,” I said.
“What gives you that feeling?”
“I knew him better than anyone. Believe me, I would know.”
“Would you be willing to come back on when the report comes out?” he asked. “Even if his death is classified as an overdose?”
I told him I would be happy to, and Larry called out to one of the producers to track the story, to be sure and rebook me when the official cause of death was revealed.
Corey Haim’s official autopsy report was released on May 5, 2010—he died of pneumonia, with complications due to an enlarged heart. There were traces of eight drugs in his system, some prescription pills and some over-the-counter cold medicines, but none of them contributed to his passing.
Later that day I was booked to reappear on
Larry King Live,
but two hours before I was scheduled to arrive for taping, one of the producers called to cancel. We were bumped for coverage of the foiled Times Square terrorist bombing. Corey didn’t stand a chance against Rudy Guiliani and John McCain.
* * *
People always ask
me about life after childhood stardom. Do I have any advice for Lindsay Lohan? What would I say to parents of children in the industry? How can child stars avoid the pitfalls of fame?
My only advice, honestly, is to get these kids out of Hollywood and let them lead normal lives—which is exactly what I told the producers at ABC’s
Nightline,
when they asked me to participate in an upcoming episode about the perils of underage fame. I usually don’t give interviews unless I have a project to promote, but I had grown so tired of hearing how great it is to be famous. Plucking children out of school and exploiting them for profit isn’t healthy; neither is turning your five-year-old into the family breadwinner, or living out dreams of celebrity vicariously through your kids. Is it really all that surprising that so many child actors have problems later in life? Since
Nightline
is a reputable program, I thought maybe I could do some good by throwing in my two cents. “If you’re interested in hearing that perspective, then I’ll agree to do the interview,” I had told them. “But if you want to hear that Hollywood is a great place for children, you might want to talk to somebody else.”
That was really all I was planning to say—that I think pushing kids into the spotlight is almost always a bad idea. But by the time I was sitting down in front of the cameras, weeks after I initially agreed to the interview, Corey had been bumped from the In Memoriam segment at the Oscars; it was the second awards show to snub him that season, and I guess I just sort of snapped. Despite the release of the autopsy report, people were still reporting that his death was the result of an overdose. I was fed up with people insisting—loudly, and in public—that Corey’s tragic death was really his own damn fault.
“Well, whose fault is it?” the reporter asked me. “His parents? Who is really to blame?”
“I blame the entertainment industry,” I said.
“How so?”
“Nobody talks about what the real problem is.”
“What’s the real problem?”
I could feel it coming, the words bubbling up in my throat. “The number-one problem in Hollywood,” I said, “was, and is, and always will be pedophilia. That’s the biggest problem in this industry, for children. It’s the big secret. There’s only one person to blame for the death of Corey Haim.”
The
Nightline
episode aired in August 2011 and was instant national news. That part wasn’t surprising. Neither were the accusations that I had done the interview to stay “relevant” or to try to advance my career—after nearly forty years in this business, I’ve come to expect that kind of cynicism, although it’s still hurtful and difficult for me to hear. What I hadn’t anticipated—and here you could make the argument that I was extremely naïve—was that trying to “guess the pedophile,” trying to figure out who had molested and abused Corey Haim, would turn into a cheap parlor game. The comments sections of countless blogs, on YouTube, and even ABC’s Web site turned into a veritable who’s who of Hollywood. Suddenly, I was getting hundreds of phone calls and tweets and e-mails from people I had never even met—who, mind you, had absolutely no idea what they were talking about—saying that if I was
really
Corey’s friend, I would stop “protecting” his abusers, if I
really
cared about Corey, I would publicly name names.
I can tell you that over the course of our more than twenty-year-long friendship, Corey and I often discussed going public with our respective stories. The closest he ever got, though, was in 2008, two years before he died. In a dingy diner in Studio City, during episode one of season two of
The Two Coreys,
Haim accused me of knowing that he had been molested at age fourteen and of having done nothing to stop it.
It’s true that we were both molested by men in the industry, and that we knew each other’s assailants. But the incident that we almost never discussed, the one that haunted Haim for the rest of his life, happened three years before we met.
Corey was raped at the age of eleven. And like many, many victims of sex abuse, drug use became an easy, if also tragic, way for him to escape the weight of that shame.
There is nothing I would rather do than publicly out the man who molested—and ultimately destroyed—my dearest friend. Unfortunately, that is not the way the world works. You can’t go around publicly accusing industry titans without expecting to find yourself in the middle of a nasty lawsuit, to say nothing of the potential threat to my career, as well as to the personal safety of myself and my son. As for the idea of going to the police, it will perhaps surprise you to know that I have. Of course, I don’t have any evidence, and Corey Haim is no longer alive to testify on his own behalf. As for opening cases against
my
abusers, there is a statute of limitations on sex crimes in California; and, apparently, I am too late. The only thing I know how to do, then, is to try and raise people’s awareness, to somehow protect other children before the same thing happens to them.
* * *
In the fall
of 2011, just a few months after the
Nightline
interview aired, a young boy and his parents came forward and pressed charges against Martin Weiss, a forty-seven-year-old Hollywood talent manager who specialized in representing underage actors. The news went viral instantly—Weiss had worked with hundreds of young stars since opening his talent agency in the early ’90s; I’ve known him since I was twelve years old.
During the months leading up to Weiss’s pretrial hearing, I spoke with the victim and his parents and discussed the case with the prosecutor. I offered whatever kind of help or guidance I possibly could. But, as is so often the case in these types of proceedings, Weiss was able to make a deal. He pleaded no contest to two counts of oral copulation with a minor. His one-year prison sentence was suspended in June 2012; he was released early for time served and “good behavior.”
For a brief time after that, I lost faith in the system. Why should I put a target on my back or set myself up to become some kind of poster child for sex abuse if the courts can’t protect abused children? But then I realized that something
was
happening—for the first time in years, people were starting to talk.
Weiss’s arrest came just two weeks after arrests in two other high-profile Hollywood cases. In November 2011, an award-winning composer for
Sesame Street
was arraigned on charges of producing and distributing child pornography, as well as coercing a minor to “engage in sexually explicit conduct.” One month later, news broke that Jason James Murphy, a registered sex offender and convicted kidnapper, had been working for years as a prominent casting director; he had placed underage performers in such high-profile films as
Super 8
and
School of Rock.
The following January, an article in the
Los Angeles Times
revealed details of more than one dozen arrests of various managers, casting agents, and production assistants on counts ranging from child porn to molestation, all in the last ten years.
How does this happen? How do so many innocent, talented, and even famous children wind up suffering in silence? The obvious answer is that pedophiles will flock to an industry where they can surround themselves with eager, ambitious children. But there’s another answer, too: the bright lights of Hollywood are blinding, and the sanctity of childhood is easily trumped by the deafening drumbeat of fame.
In September 2012, a bill affording greater protection for underage actors was signed into California state law. For the first time, managers, publicists, and other Hollywood professionals who work with children will be required to submit to criminal background checks. The bill also prohibits registered sex offenders from representing minors in the entertainment industry. It’s incredible that legislation like this has been such a long time coming, but it has a real chance of protecting children like my friend Corey—more real, I think, than just naming names.
* * *
I have always
been a polarizing public figure; I know what gets written about me in the press. To the casual fan, I may come across as immature, or self-absorbed, or unsophisticated, or flat-out crazy, and—certainly—I’ve made my mistakes. Despite some of the more sensational headlines, though, I actually lead a relatively normal life. I’ve been sober for more than two decades. I make an average of one to three films a year. I’m a passionate environmentalist and an advocate for animal rights. I tour occasionally with my band Truth Movement and have a thriving solo music career. And I have a son, Zen, my most precious gift.
But in the three years since Corey died, I’ve spent less time thinking about where I am and more time wondering how I got here. I guess that’s natural; thinking about the end of something—his life, our friendship—inevitably dredges up thoughts of the beginning. When I look back on my life, however, the memories that are the most vivid, the most complete and fully realized in my mind, are from times when I was on film sets and in television studios, from times when I was working. In fact, I’ve always marked the chronology of my life not by the year, but by the film, because so much of the rest of it I’d just as soon forget. There are entire chapters of my life that I don’t want to remember, and some moments in time have been lost to me completely. But in the three years since Corey’s death, I’ve been trying. In order to figure out how I got here, I have to go back to the start.