Corey Feldman on child sex abuse in Hollywood: "I would love to name names"
Elijah Wood called out child exploitation in Hollywood earlier this week, but he later made it clear that he was not speaking from personal experience.
But Corey Feldman wants people to know that he knows about Hollywood's child abuse problem firsthand.
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Feldman said he was molested as a child actor, and that his best friend Corey Haim was raped at the age of 11.
He said that he has had to go through "a lot of therapy" to cope with his traumatic childhood; the actor said his molestations came "from several hands."
"Ask anybody in our group of kids at that time: They were passing us back and forth to each other," said Feldman, adding that grown men in Hollywood would host parties and invite mostly kids aged 10 to 16 with just a few adults in the mix. "[Alison Arngrim] from 'Little House on the Prairie' said [in an interview], 'Everybody knew that the two Coreys were just being passed around.' Like it was something people joked about on studio lots."
Feldman added that he still can't imagine what it was like for Haim to have been raped.
"My son is 11 now, and I can't even begin to fathom the idea of something like that happening to him," he said. "It would destroy his whole being. As I look at my son, a sweet, innocent, 11-year-old boy and then try to put him in Corey Haim's shoes, I go, 'Oh my God -- well of course he was erratic and not well-behaved on sets and things like that.'"
Feldman said that while he would love to name names, he was afraid to do so because of the legal conundrum it would inflict on him, but he said he has bumped into one of his molesters several times and has never confronted him.
The "Goonies" star also said that it's easier than ever for predators to prey on children because of social media.
"They reach out to little kids on Twitter, they reach out to little kids on Facebook, and they say, 'I'm a big producer and I can help you,'" he said.
