The last time MTV News caught up with Corey Haim in July of 2007 he seemed by most accounts to be in a pretty good place. Everything is relative of course. Haim wasn’t exactly on top of the world. But he was back in the public eye, and for the first time in a long while he was clearly relieved it wasn’t related to bad news.
He was promoting “The Two Coreys,” a show that A&E was calling a reality/hybrid at the time. The truth is whatever it was, it certainly captured a fair amount of the reality of Haim and Feldman’s oddball relationship. Inextricably linked since their heyday in the '80s, the two were forever wrestling with what they meant to each other. Throughout my interview with Haim he called Feldman both a brother and a backstabber. I’d accuse him of playing up the rift at the time for the benefit of the cameras but that clearly wasn’t who Haim was. If I had to sum up the 40 plus minute interview he gave us that day in one word it would be: raw.
He was by turns goofy, melancholy, resigned, optimistic and open. His speech was odd, affected seemingly by his years of self-abuse. Truthfully it took me watching the tape afterwards to decipher some of what he was talking about (a particularly bizarre exchange involved his description of how lost so much weight, “watermelon and the disc,” he said—that’s Frisbee you see).
We covered a fair amount of ground in the interview. When the subject moved to his past drug use he was clearly nervous saying he was clean but admitting “they built rehabs because of me.” All of it came with a smile and boyish giggle. He knew that everybody was aware of the baggage he’d accumulated through years of rehab and sub-par projects. All he wanted was another shot. A disturbingly off-kilter cameo in a forgettable direct to DVD sequel, “The Lost Boys 2: The Tribe,” certainly didn’t end up being it.
When the interview ended, Haim came up to me and thanked me for a “gentle” interview. He gave me a big hug that felt less like a perfunctory note of thanks than an honest-to-goodness thirst for human affection and approval.
He was a big kid who never quite grew up. He needed help. He acknowledged that. He spoke about new opportunities that day and hoped for the best. Of acting he said, "It's my life. My passion." He was putting the past behind him even as he knew he had to cash in on it. The second act of Corey Haim’s career never quite came together. An unfinished life. Rest in peace.