Corey Feldman talks R. Kelly, abuse in Hollywood and how #MeToo is just the beginning
Corey Feldman wants to change the world. It’s a lofty goal for someone known best as the star of classic ’80s movies like The Goonies, Stand by Me and The Lost Boys. After years of suffering in silence, the actor came forward as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, perpetrated, he says, by a powerful person in Hollywood. But this wasn’t an admission made in the wake of the #MeToo movement — this was in 2013 — and no one listened.
Now 47, he’s vowed to make his voice heard through a new documentary that he says will unmask his abuser, a person who is “very, very famous that’s been living and breathing as a millionaire, getting away with all this for decades.” It also features the story of his best friend, Corey Haim, who died in 2010. “The first day we met, he told me what had happened to him,” Feldman told Yahoo Lifestyle in a recent interview of Haim’s alleged abuse. “He’s not here to tell it himself. He asked me to do so before he died. That was the one promise he asked me to make him. I gave him my word and I intend to carry through with that, no matter what.”
Feldman has also signed on as an ambassador for Child USA, an organization dedicated to protecting children from abuse and neglect. As part of his work, he became a vocal advocate for the Child Victims Act, which New York state passed in late January. The bill allows survivors of sexual abuse to seek prosecution of their abusers in civil cases up until the age of 55, up from the previous limit of 23. “What we’ve just done in New York is a tremendous, tremendous victory. This is one of the most exciting weeks of my life,” Feldman says.
Even though this is not the law in every state, Feldman says the #MeToo movement has encouraged people to take a second look at cases outside the statute of limitations. “If you look at the R. Kelly [documentary], after all these years of rumors and talk, even though there are all these statutes, there’s enough there now for them to consider making a special exception and finding a way through loopholes to take them down.”
Although his documentary doesn’t yet have a distributor or a release date, Feldman is determined to make sure the world hears what he has to say. “The film is coming. It’s done. There’s nothing they can do to stop it. You can kill me but you can’t stop the message and you can’t stop the truth. And the truth is coming, no matter what.”
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