The Tragic True Stories Behind Some Of Hollywood’s Biggest Child Stars

Published February 4, 2020
Updated November 7, 2023

The Other Half Of A Broken Heartthrob, Child Actor Corey Haim

Young Corey Haim's Headshot

Ann Summa/Getty ImagesCorey Haim in 1987.

Haim was a true heartthrob with ambitions of becoming the next James Dean. What followed instead was a life of substance abuse and untimely death.

The other half of the “Two Coreys,” Corey Haim, was also a teenage heartthrob known for his rapid success in Hollywood — and also for his tragic downward spiral.

Born in Ontario, Canada in December 1971, Haim scored his first acting gig at 10 in the Canadian series The Edison Twins. Shortly after, he landed his first role on the big screen in 1984’s Firstborn where he starred alongside Sarah Jessica Parker and Robert Downey Jr.

While on the set of Firstborn, Haim complimented his co-star Peter Weller who in a fit of rage that he later attributed to his method acting, threw the 13-year-old Haim up against a wall.

They were eventually separated by a group of on-set assistants and Weller apologized. But the incident had a lasting impact on Haim, who later went on to say that the incident “terrified” him.

From there, a slew of additional parts came in, some of which garnered the child actor a great deal of critical acclaim, particularly for his starring role in the 1986 teen-dramedy Lucas.

It was around the time of this film that Haim had his first encounter with drugs and alcohol. He would later confess to tabloid magazines that he had had his first beer while on set.

These early brushes with substances are what undoubtedly helped lead the young actor down a dangerous path that would ultimately have no return.

In 1987, Corey Haim and Corey Feldman starred in the Joel Schumacher horror film The Lost Boys. The two became fast friends and the film was well-received.

Haim became even more popular and began receiving nearly 2,000 fan letters from young women and girls. He found the attention “a little frightening” and with more exposure and pressure than ever before, his experimentation with drugs and alcohol increased.

Speaking in later years about his experience as a young and vulnerable Hollywood star, Haim said, “I lived in LA in the 1980s, which was not the best place to be. I did cocaine for about a year and a half, then it led to crack.”

A young Haim in 1987’s The Lost Boys.

By the time the 2000s had arrived, Corey Haim’s career completely fizzled. He’d been reduced to taking bit parts in films, many of which were direct-to-video. He had also been in and out of rehab more times than he could count.

Addicted to opioids and desperate for cash, Haim had begun removing his teeth and cutting his hair in attempts to sell them online for extra money, all in an attempt to recoup some of the losses that had befallen him after falling out of the spotlight years prior.

Much like Feldman, Corey Haim also claimed to have suffered sexual abuse as a child while working in Hollywood.

As an adult struggling with addiction, Haim admitted that his issues could likely have stemmed from the abuse that began when he was just 14 or 15 years old.

In an interview with People magazine before his death by overdose at just 38 in 2010, Haim explained:

“I was ashamed, so I shut my mouth, and I just rolled with the punches, man. Stuff happens when you are a kid, it scars you inside for life. That is just how I look at it.”

In Corey Feldman’s memoir Coreyography, he claimed that Haim had confided in him about some of the horrors that he experienced. In a Rolling Stone article from April of 2019, Feldman discussed some of those upsetting details.

The article wrote that “Haim was trying to convince Feldman, a virgin at the time, that they should mess around, that ‘this is what all boys do. It’s called the boys’ club, and this is totally normal’ — all words that Haim said he’d once been told. Feldman asked by whom. Haim told him, and, according to Feldman, went on to describe his alleged rape in ugly, explicit detail.”

Child Actors Corey Haim And Corey Feldman

Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty ImagesThe Two Coreys, Haim on the left and Feldman on the right.

While Feldman and Haim were as close as brothers, not everyone from Haim’s life has appreciated the fervor with which Feldman has been discussing Haim’s claims of abuse. Corey Haim’s mother, for one, believes that Feldman was and still is jealous of her son’s success.

“He’s desperately trying to destroy my son’s history, his image, his memory,” the mother, Judy, said. “It’s a very deep jealousy thing, that my son always got first billing. I’m sick of him, dragging my son’s name through the mud for nine years. I mean, how shameful. The guy’s a liar. The guy’s sick. OK?”

Corey Haim never quite lived up to his dreams of being as legendary as James Dean.

Having been exposed to the seedy underbelly of Hollywood by the time he was a teenager, it is perhaps fair to assume that the young heartthrob never really stood a chance to escape the perils of substance abuse while in the chokehold of an industry that always turned a blind eye.

author
Leah Silverman
author
A former associate editor for All That's Interesting, Leah Silverman holds a Master's in Fine Arts from Columbia University's Creative Writing Program and her work has appeared in Catapult, Town & Country, Women's Health, and Publishers Weekly.
editor
John Kuroski
editor
John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of interest include modern history and true crime.