I wasn’t keen on putting any foreign substance in my body, especially after catching a glimpse of what Haim was up to. And had the operation been my only health hurdle, I perhaps could have made it through without medication. But within a few months, I would have four impacted wisdom teeth removed, then a slipped disk in my back, and then came the first stages of what would become a two-year struggle with aching, unexplained stomach and groin pain. I was able to keep my prescription pill use under control; at first, I used them only as directed. That would become more and more difficult, however, as the months dragged on.
* * *
By the beginning of 1995, things seemed to be looking up. The last of my three films with Haim—Dream a Little Dream 2—was in the can. It would be another straight-to-video release but, hey, I was working regularly and ready to move on to new things. I auditioned for a Warner Brothers television pilot—a mainstream project with quality people—and, incredibly, I got the job. We shot the pilot for Dweebs, a sitcom about brilliant but socially inept computer geeks (not unlike the premise of today’s smash hit The Big Bang Theory), and CBS picked it up. On the heels of that news, Richard Donner—who had become something of a guardian angel in my life—snagged me a role in his upcoming film.
I had already done an episode of his successful HBO series Tales from the Crypt (that was after he got me a very small cameo in the 1994 blockbuster Maverick, starring Mel Gibson). Now, he was gearing up to make the second Tales from the Crypt movie in what was intended to be a trilogy of films. Both the television series and the films were helmed by some real Hollywood heavyweights, including producers Robert Zemeckis and Joel Silver. Tales from the Crypt: Bordello of Blood would be a great opportunity to work with major players in the industry. I felt like I was finally back.
Dweebs premiered in the fall to excellent reviews; the (now defunct) Viewers for Quality Television called us the “biggest surprise” of the season. But as is so often the case, we struggled to find a wide enough audience. This was, after all, a show about computer nerds; in 1995, cell phones were still something of a rarity, and Facebook wasn’t even a glint in Mark Zuckerberg’s eye. We were, perhaps, a little ahead of our time. As a result, Dweebs was cancelled after only six episodes. A few months later, Bordello of Blood tanked at the box office. (It probably didn’t help that the film’s star, comedian Dennis Miller, went on television and told audiences not to bother even seeing it.)
The sting of two failed projects was one thing. The unexplained pain, with which I was still struggling, was another. All those things combined, however, lead to a catastrophic moment of weakness, one I have never before admitted to publicly: by the end of 1995, I was gobbling twenty double-strength Vicodin a day. I was still going to meetings, still trying to live the sober life, but I was no longer really buying into it.
I had heard of using marijuana as a way to mitigate pain (again, this was 1995; “medical marijuana” hadn’t yet hit the mainstream), and I thought marijuana might be better than prescription pill abuse. So, I smoked a joint. The joint led to an eight-ball. And the eight-ball led to a full-fledged relapse.
I tumbled downhill faster than I ever had in my life. My car—a flashy Mercedes I had purchased with my network sitcom money—was repossessed. The beautiful home in Encino, right around the corner from the Jackson family estate, I could no longer afford. I moved to an apartment in Woodland Hills and, at first, both Tony and my cousin Michael came with me. But soon neither of them could stand watching me ruin my life. Again. Eventually, they both moved out.
I found myself wandering through Chatsworth Park one night, the same park where I had gone climbing with Tom, my mother’s old alcoholic, abusive boyfriend. I was terrified. I couldn’t believe—after all those months in rehab, and all the hard work in recovery—I had allowed myself to go careening off track. It ended up being one of those cry-your-eyes-out, howl-at-the-moon kind of nights, and I had a kind of spiritual awakening, a “moment of clarity,” as it’s often referred to in sobriety circles. I had to admit to myself that I was out of control, had to give it all up to God, so to speak.
I vowed to no longer be overcome by the negative. My relapse only lasted a little more than a month, and I never had another hard drug again.
After two years of living with undiagnosed and unexplained pain, I passed the first of several kidney stones. I also found a doctor who was able to further explain my problem: some people, for some reason, have overactive kidneys, and may pass many microscopic stones, in addition to the bigger, visible ones. These are undetectable to the naked eye, but can still cause irritation, pain, and even blood in the urine. The diagnosis was a welcome discovery; it had just come a little bit late.
* * *
During the filming of Dweebs, I started toying with the idea of putting together a psychedelic rock band, something a bit reminiscent of Pink Floyd. I had become a huge fan of their music, had traveled all over the world to see their shows, I had even become friendly with David Gilmour after meeting him backstage at a show in L.A., around the time I was shooting License to Drive. I pulled together my previous collaborators, Mark Karan and David Dunn, brought on some new artists, and together we formed Truth Movement.
I finished the first album near the end of 1998. It was a dark, intensely personal, autobiographical piece, with songs like “Hopeless” and “Spiraling Downward,” essentially a suicide note set to music. But the process, again, proved cathartic. And whereas my solo album had been universally panned, and certainly never got a distribution deal, Still Searching for Soul did a little bit better. We even scored a deal for placement in record stores.
Truth Movement started playing small shows around L.A. for virtually no money—sometimes we even had to pay to play—but within a year or so we were setting out for a cross-country tour. It was a modest affair, sure, just seven guys stuffed in a van with a bunch of gear and a trailer hitch, and in Seattle, right in the middle of sound check, I completely lost my voice. (Luckily, it’s a psychedelic rock band; we were able to improvise a lot of instrumental intermissions.) But hearing promos for our shows on the radio, seeing fans show up in their Goonies T-shirts, was actually, oddly, encouraging. It’s not like I didn’t know that some people were there for the spectacle. But I didn’t need to sell out a stadium. I was happy if anyone at all wanted to hear us play.
CHAPTER 20
I needed to blow off some steam, which is how I found myself at Las Palmas, a trendy nightclub at the north end of Hollywood. I was scanning the room when I locked eyes with a pretty brunette. She was different from the girls I usually dated, but there was something about her. There was something sweet, angelic even, about her face.
I wasn’t looking for a relationship. I wasn’t even really interested in having a fling. I’d fallen into an all-too-familiar pattern with women, ever since my breakup with Vanessa: meet someone with whom I thought I might have a future, move her in within three months, get engaged in six, and by nine months—when I would invariably discover that I was being lied to or cheated on, or both—everything would fall apart, and then I’d be on to the next. By 2001, I wasn’t sure if I could trust anyone. I had more or less given up. I was just about to call it a night when the pretty brunette sidled over.
“Excuse me,” she said, “are you Corey Feldman?”
“Yes.”
“I’m so excited to meet you! I’ve been a fan of yours all the way until…”
“Until when?” I interjected.
“Well, until today!”
Being recognized by a fan at a nightclub isn’t usually the way to a love connection, but I thanked her, offered to buy her a drink at the bar, and before long she was pulling me on the dance floor. The girl had chutzpah, I had to give her that. She wasn’t afraid to take charge. She knew how to get what she wanted.
Susie Sprague and I slept together that very night, and within days I had told her everything about my life—everything about the abuse, the drugs, the scandals, and the recoveries. I
confided in her about my insecurities, my jealousy, and my inability to trust. I even told her I didn’t know if I knew how to have a relationship. I wasn’t sure if I really knew how to love, or how to be loved back. Susie had been hurt before, too, but she was still willing to give it a shot. So, we decided to try things differently than either of us had before in the past. In order to build trust and to restore faith in ourselves as partners, we would have an open relationship. If we had an urge or a fantasy, we would share it with each other.
We fell in love quickly. With Susie, there was no fighting, no bullshit, no jealousy, no lying, no cheating, and no drama. We were just happy—every single day. I recognized it as the start of a new kind of life.
* * *
Nearly a decade earlier, when I first heard that Michael Jackson had been accused of child molestation, I almost laughed—it seemed so ridiculous. Then I got a call from the LAPD; a sergeant and a detective wanted to talk to me about my friendship with him.
The audiotapes have long since been leaked to the press—I clearly stated that Michael never touched me, never acted in any way inappropriate. What’s incredible about them, however, is that I admitted that I had been molested; I even named my abuser. The sergeant peppering me with questions, Deborah Linden, breezed right past that. She didn’t seem the least bit interested.
Over the next several weeks, I made a few informal comments to the press and declared that Michael was innocent of the charges. (I was still living in Encino at the time; the paparazzi often made the two-minute drive to my house once they’d grown tired of staking out Hayvenhurst.) Michael was appreciative that I had spoken out on his behalf, and as a thank-you—several months after he settled the case out of court—he invited me up to Neverland Ranch.
I took Corey Haim with me, since he had never actually had an opportunity to meet Michael face-to-face. We rode go-karts. We giggled as Michael told us stories about Madonna, his date to the 1991 Academy Awards. (I think she intended to make a man out of him, but Michael wasn’t ready for all that.) We ordered movies to watch in his theater. Together, the three of us screened Dream a Little Dream.
But I didn’t see much of Michael in the years after that. He called once when I was in the hospital, still seeking treatment for my as-yet-undiagnosed kidney stones. I called his camp in 1995, after word came that he had collapsed—from “exhaustion”—in New York a few days before he was due to film an HBO special, One Night Only, at the Beacon Theater. It was obvious even then that his physical health, perhaps even his mental health, was deteriorating. Still, I wanted to see him. So when I was invited to attend the celebratory concerts in honor of the thirtieth anniversary of his solo career, I leaped at the chance. The Jackson camp secured my tickets, while I proceeded to make travel arrangements for Susie and me to fly to New York. I had us booked at the Millennium Hotel, adjacent to the World Trade Center, until Majestik convinced us that we should stay with him, nearer the family, uptown.
The first of the two performances, held at Madison Square Garden, was the evening of September seventh. Susie and I arrived early, walked the red carpet, and took our seats in the stadium—the whole thing was great fun; Whitney Houston, Slash, ’N Sync, and Destiny’s Child were all part of the star-studded event, but Michael’s performance was lacking. He seemed out of it, not quite present, like he wasn’t even enjoying the occasion. That was odd; Michael loved to perform. I was having trouble reconciling the man on stage with the man I had grown up idolizing.
When the concert ended, sometime around eleven o’clock that night, Susie and I hopped in a car with some of the family and rode as part of a lengthy caravan through the city streets. Michael was hosting an elaborate “Champagne and Caviar Dinner” at the renowned Central Park restaurant, Tavern on the Green. The whole place was a who’s-who of Hollywood and the music industry; everyone from Gloria Estefan to Elizabeth Taylor to Marlon Brando was there. At some point, Sean Lennon offered to take a photo of Susie, Michael, and me. It would be the last photo he and I would ever take together.
We spoke briefly about spending a little alone time together that weekend. Of course, Michael had a jam-packed schedule, so we decided it would be most convenient to meet at Madison Square Garden again, on Monday afternoon, a few hours before the start of the second concert. Susie and I said good night and headed back to the hotel. Everything got really weird after that.
Susie and I were supposed to pick up our passes and credentials at the VIP Entrance, but when we arrived on the afternoon of the tenth, there weren’t any passes to be had. I had been to a number of Michael’s events before; they were always impeccably organized and usually ran smooth as silk. Something about this felt mighty different. After milling around outside for a while, I ended up getting separated from Susie, led down two elevators and several dimly lit hallways, and shoved into a tiny dressing room. I must have waited in there for an hour. Each time I poked my head out, to inquire about my girlfriend, or about when Michael might be showing up, two burly security guards would direct me, brusquely, back inside. “Just wait right here, sir,” they kept saying. “Please stay inside the room.”
I felt like I was being held hostage. It wasn’t even clear if Michael was expecting to see me or not. Finally, he showed up and walked, alone, into the room.
“I need to talk to you about something.” He was all dressed up in his concert attire, and he seemed jittery. Nervous, even. “You know I love you, right? You know I want to believe what they’re telling me isn’t true?”
“What who’s telling you?” I asked. “About what?”
“Please promise me you’re not going to write this book.”
“What book?”
“They’re telling me you’re writing a book about me, and you’re planning to say all these terrible things.”
It’s true that I had had offers before, had even toyed with the idea of writing a memoir about my life, but I had never actually moved forward, never gotten anything off the ground. Regardless, why would I write a book about Michael Jackson? Stranger still, why would I write “terrible things” about him? Michael and I were friends; we had never before had anything even resembling a fight. Which is what I told him, as we stood next to each other in that small dressing room.
“Okay, I want to believe you,” he said. “I really do. But you’re going to have to talk to my mother.”
We walked out of the dressing room and he sort of shoved me in Katherine’s direction; she had apparently been standing outside the dressing room, in the hallway. I turned to speak to him, to ask him, again, what was really going on, but a crowd of security guards enclosed around him. With that, he was gone.
Katherine gave me a hug and told me not to worry; she didn’t seem to share Michael’s concerns, and mumbled something about people trying to take advantage of him, that it was difficult to know whom to trust. But I soon discovered that there weren’t any passes or credentials available for Susie or me; it was obvious that we were no longer welcome backstage. So, instead of attending the concert, we wandered out into the night. I let our tickets fall from my hands, landing in a muddy puddle on the street. I couldn’t explain what had just happened, I wanted to get the hell out of town.
The next morning was September 11.
I had actually called a bellhop to come and collect our luggage; Susie and I were preparing to take a cab to JFK. That was moments before the first plane hit. After that, everything just sort of stopped—until Majestik rushed in and suggested we meet up with the family. “If anyone’s going to make it out of New York, it’s the Jacksons.”
Like it did for so many, many people, the day dissolved into a blur of fear, panic, terror, and sadness. We spent most of the morning schlepping our luggage over to the Plaza hotel, where a large portion of the Jackson family was staying. (Joe and Katherine were at a different hotel down the street; Janet and Michael were at a third hotel around the corner.) Jermaine spent most of his time on the phone, speaking to someone about maybe renting a bus. A
nd at 4:00 P.M., after hours of sitting around in a state of shock, we were boarding.
As I climbed aboard and got Susie settled in one of the seats, I saw Majestik shoot me an odd look. Then, Randy appeared behind me, and said he needed to have a word. I followed him and Jermaine back off the bus, to the sidewalk.
“I’m afraid you can’t come with us,” Randy said.
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know what happened between you and Michael, but he doesn’t want you on that bus.”
I couldn’t understand it. First, the strange confrontation about a book that didn’t exist; now, I was being kicked off what was literally the only ride out of town—all of the tunnels and bridges were closed. I was going to be stranded in New York for apparently no good reason. I was embarrassed, but also insulted and hurt. Eventually, Jermaine agreed to let us travel with them, as long as I promised never to tell Michael he had allowed us to get back on the bus.
The next few days were bizarre, to say the least: riding on a bus with the Jacksons, stopping at fast-food restaurants and more than one Cracker Barrel. (I don’t know if it’s still official policy, but at the southern-style restaurant, celebrities used to eat free.) Somewhere outside Nashville, when it became possible to secure ourselves a rental car, Susie and I disembarked, thanked the family, and headed back home by ourselves.
Back in L.A., I tried to put what had happened with Michael behind me—but not before including a thinly veiled song about the experience, “Megaloman,” on my third album. Within weeks of its release, I was sent a cease and desist letter from Jackson’s attorneys, claiming that the song was defamatory. I responded with my own letter; of all people, Michael Jackson should understand the importance of creative freedom. (It’s not like he hadn’t written skewering songs of his own.) The letters stopped after that, and the song stayed on the album.
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