The Tragic Story Of Corey Haim, The Child Star Who Died After A Long Battle With Drug Addiction

Corey Feldman and Corey Haim were two of the most popular young actors of the 1980s. They were best friends for life who appeared in a number of successful movies together, including The Lost Boys. However, "the Coreys" exchanged more than just credit information. They became friends because they both had experience with Hollywood's dark side and were supposedly victims of its pedophile ring.

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Both Coreys became drug users as teenagers, but Corey Haim's addictions took a much larger role in his life. When he was only 18 years old, he sought treatment for a crack cocaine addiction, but he had trouble staying clean. Haim relapsed into his habits as he aged and his job dried up, overdosing several times.

By the middle of the 2000s, he and his mother were residing in an apartment close to Burbank, where Haim would pass away in 2010. The reason of Corey Haim's death was finally determined to be natural causes, but his protracted drug addiction undoubtedly threw a troubling and menacing shadow over the proceedings.

On December 23, 1971, Judy and Bernie Haim welcomed Corey Ian Haim into the world in Toronto, Canada. Haim moved in with his mother in Willowdale following his parents' divorce in 1982. His mother enrolled him in drama, improvisation, and mime workshops because he was a somewhat shy child and needed help overcoming his shyness.

Evidently, the lessons were worthwhile since, as Haim's sister Carol was going through the casting process for various roles, producers noticed 10-year-old Corey and offered him a position in the educational comedy series The Edison Twins.

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Corey Haim's career was launched and the young actor made a name for himself with this show, which only ran for two years between 1984 and 1985, according to the New Zealand Herald.

Soon after, he and Peter Weller were cast in the suspenseful film Firstborn. The 13-year-old Haim portrayed a youngster who was forced to live with Weller, who also happened to be a method actor, and his mother's violent boyfriend. Weller yelled at Haim and shoved him against a wall after Haim praised him for his performance on the first day of filming. To separate them, three assistance were needed.

Although Weller would subsequently apologize to Haim and blame the event on his method acting, the encounter shocked Haim and left a lasting impression.

With persistence, the young actor was able to land parts in a number of noteworthy movies, such as Secret Admirer, Murphy's Romance, and Stephen King's Silver Bullet.

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Lucas, a 1986 film in which he co-starred with Kerri Green, Charlie Sheen, and Winona Ryder, was his breakthrough performance, though. In the movie, Kerri Green plays a cheerleader who is older than 14-year-old Lucas, and Lucas develops a crush on her. Green apparently had a crush on Corey Haim, but he was rejected by her. Later, he claimed that his act was motivated by a real-life breakup.

As noted by film reviewer Roger Ebert in his review of his performance, things went well for him: “He creates one of the most three-dimensional, complicated, interesting characters of any age in any recent movie. If he can continue to act this well, he will never become a half-forgotten child star, but will continue to grow into an important actor. He is that good.”

Unfortunately, Haim began drinking frequently and sometimes on site while Lucas was being filmed.

Then, in 1987, Haim and his soon-to-be best buddy, Corey Feldman, won their next significant roles in The Lost Boys. Corey Haim also used marijuana for the first time at this time, and as his success increased, so did his drug habit.

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“I lived in LA in the 1980s, which was not the best place to be,” Haim later said of his substance use. “I did cocaine for about a year and a half, then it led to crack.”

When Haim was filming License To Drive alongside Heather Graham and Corey Feldman in 1988, he said that he had fully lost control over his drug problems. At that time, Haim claimed that everything had come to a head. He sought treatment a year later, at the age of 18, claiming he had become "out of whack." Haim had even started asking high school students where he might purchase crack at one of his lowest times.

Feldman was also well-known for his drug use. It was said that he consumed "bales of weed" and engaged in "coke-off" competitions with pals to see who could consume the most cocaine and remain up the longest.

Feldman would later write about his own experiences as a young actor growing up in 1980s Hollywood, including the alleged sexual assault both he and Corey Haim experienced as a result.

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Corey Feldman claimed that older males who worked in the entertainment industry had assaulted him for years in his autobiography, Coreyography. He added that early in their acquaintance, Corey Haim came to him with similar stories and that this shared trauma helped to forge a close link between them.

Feldman later spoke with People Magazine about the abuse, but he made it clear that he wouldn't name any individuals in order to spare Haim's mother further suffering.

“There are people that did this to me and Corey that are still working, they’re still out there and they’re some of the most rich and powerful people in this business. And they do not want what I’m saying right now. They want me dead,” Feldman said.

Feldman then made a documentary movie called My Truth: The Rape of Two Coreys in which he went into further detail about the alleged assault Haim and he endured. One of the shocking disclosures in the video was the claim that Haim reportedly told Feldman that Charlie Sheen had raped him on the set of Lucas. Haim was only 13 years old, while Sheen would have been 19. Sheen's spokesman refuted the charge.

Corey Haim's mother claimed, however, in a 2017 appearance on The Dr. Oz Show that it was Dominick Brascia, not Charlie Sheen, who had sexually assaulted her son (Feldman had also claimed that Brascia had mistreated Corey Haim in the documentary). The claims were refuted by Brascia.

In the years prior to his passing, Corey Haim appeared to allude to several of the accusations that Corey Feldman would subsequently make public. When he and Feldman appeared in the A&E reality series The Two Coreys in 2007, Haim and the "rape incident" were explicitly addressed. Haim claimed that Feldman's friend had been the rapist.

“I have come to terms with this a long time ago, but obviously not [totally],” he later said. “Stuff happens when you are a kid, it scars you inside for life.”

The two Coreys were famous for holding a weekly underage party night called Alphy's Soda Pop Club, which served as a hangout for young people in Hollywood to party without adult supervision while they were young teenagers. Naturally, they led opulent lives and attended a lot of parties.

Feldman later asserted that several prominent Hollywood pedophiles would frequent the Soda Pop Club and rape and threaten the young actors. Haim never addressed the alleged sexual assault, but he did talk about how the Soda Pop Club helped him develop his addiction.

“By the end, it was dying out and everyone was on drugs,” he said. “I was on drugs, Feldman was on drugs. At the end of it, we were 16 or 17 years old!”

Unfortunately, Corey Haim never fully overcame his addictions, which led to him falling deeper and deeper into a hole of debt, loneliness, and desperation.

By the early 2000s, Corey Haim's career had all but stopped, and he had applied for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The actor claimed that during this period, which he later referred to as a "eight-year hiatus," he basically disappeared and developed "an addiction to pretty much everything."

In 2001, Haim had two drug-related hospitalizations. The second time, his mother discovered him unresponsive in his Los Angeles home.

Haim tried to sell his teeth and hair on eBay out of desperation since he didn't have the money to pay his hospital costs. However, because eBay prohibits the sale of human body parts, this endeavor was unsuccessful.

Three years later, Haim had already moved in with his mother in an apartment, but his drug abuse had only made things worse. Just two years before Corey Haim passed away in 2007, Haim checked himself into treatment once more. Upon leaving, he described himself as "a chronic relapser."

“I guess I always will be,” he said.

Corey Haim was discovered dead in the apartment he still shared with his mother on March 10, 2010.

CNN stated that pneumonia, not drugs, had been the cause of Corey Haim's death in May of that year. Despite initial suspicions that a drug overdose was the cause, toxicology tests "revealed no significant contributing factors" from drugs, according to the coroner's findings.

A cough suppressant, antihistamine, ibuprofen, Prozac, Olanzapine, Valium, Carisoprodol, meprobamate, and THC were among the substances that were found in Haim's blood at "low levels" after the autopsy indicated "an extremely large amount" of edema in his lungs. Additional toxicology testing also revealed this information.

But according to the autopsy, the drugs were "present in low levels" and "non-contributory to death."

When Corey Haim passed away, he was only 38 years old.