Corey Feldman: “Haim Will Always Be My Best Friend”

Corey Feldman has issued a public statement concerning long-time co-star and friend Corey Haim, found dead early this morning at the age 38 from an apparent drug overdose.

I was awakened at 8:30 this morning by my brother and sister knocking on my bedroom door. They informed me of the loss of my brother Corey Haim. My eyes weren’t even open all the way when the tears started streaming down my face. I am so sorry for Corey, his mother Judy, his family, my family, all of our fans, and of course my son who I will have to find a way to explain this to when he gets home from school. This is a tragic loss of a wonderful, beautiful, tormented soul, who will always be my brother, family, and best friend. We must all take this as a lesson in how we treat the people we share this world with while they are still here to make a difference. Please respect our families as we struggle and grieve through this difficult time. I hope the art Corey has left behind will be remembered as the passion of that for which he truly lived.

Haim and Feldman were forever linked following such late ’80s teen hits as The Lost Boys, License To Drive and Dream A Little Dream, continuing to appear together in straight-to-video releases and their own reality show long after their heyday (the photo above was taken at the Playboy Mansion little over a month ago). See clips from their films—and the ad for their hotline—after the jump.

Following the surprise success of 1987′s The Lost Boys, the pair were reunited for the hit License To Drive the following year.

1989′s Dream A Little Dream continued their cultural moment, with the film’s soundtrack scoring a #1 single with Michael Damian’s “Rock On”—and its Corey-fetishizing video.

Burning up the likes of Bop and Teen Beat magazines, the Coreys even had their own 1-900 number, where the pair promised to give you their personal numbers so you could chat with the stars.

Even after their moment faded, the Coreys appeared in a handful of straight-to-video releases in the ’90s, including Dream A Little Dream 2, one of many films to indulge Feldman’s enthusiasm for Michael Jackson mimicry.

The pair’s contentious relationship was the focus of their 2007-2008 A&E reality series, The Two Coreys, on which fights like this were fairly common.

Though only Feldman starred in 2008′s Lost Boys: The Tribe, Haim appeared after the credits—and in this alternate ending—setting up for a sequel that now will never be filmed.

[Photo: Splash News Online]