Corey Feldman Has Had A Roller-coaster Of A Week Following His Viral US TV Performance

Despite a litany of OK! magazine articles constantly reminding the public they're just like us, it's easy to sometimes forget that celebrities are people too.

Likewise, in a time when wage growth is minimal, unemployment steady and the global socio-political landscape is littered with genuine issues that need to be carefully navigated, it can be difficult to find any spare empathy for the travails of the rich and famous, at whom we often look up and assume are living free of any kind of struggle, or resist the urge to lay in with everyone else when we see them publicly stumble.

With that in mind, then, spare a thought for '80s movie star and former teen idol Corey Feldman, who is evidently experiencing one of the most emotionally exhausting weeks of his life after appearing on US morning show Today with his backing band, Corey's Angels, to perform their song, Go 4 It, off new album Angelic 2 The Core, all of which are real things that actually exist.

As you probably guessed, Feldman and his band went out there on national TV and gave it their unquestionably colourful all, ensuring that the performance went instantly viral. It wasn't for great reasons, though, with the prevailing narrative being that — in light of Feldman's robotic dance moves and multiple homages to late icon Michael Jackson — it was little more than a "bizarre" showing worthy of broad mockery, a challenge to which Twitter rose with vigour, as usual.

While not exactly unfounded, this pile-on became somewhat less funny — if you have any empathy at all — when Feldman followed up the online backlash with an apparently teary, emotional live stream on Facebook with Angels member Courtney Anne, in which the pair spoke out against what they saw as bullying remarks from the public before consequently deleting the video. 

During the disappeared clip, he reportedly admitted that the "really painful" 24 hours following the performance had left him "petrified" to even leave his house. He made some worrying comparisons along the way — it doesn't really seem advisable, fair or accurate to equate wider racial and social struggles with being a white celebrity who was mocked online — but it's clear, from the reported transcripts, that it was nonetheless genuinely affecting him.

"I’m sorry if it’s not good enough for you, but you don’t have to beat us up," Feldman reportedly said. "I just want to say that, like, why is it OK to, like, publicly shame us?

"It’s, like, not PC to, like, say somebody is fat or somebody is white or somebody is black or somebody is yellow or green or if they have a short leg or if they have a missing finger," he apparently continued. "But it’s OK to bash Corey Feldman and the Angels."

However, clearly determined to not let negativity be the defining aspect of the experience, Feldman and Anne have since succeeded that video with a sequel piece, explaining the video's deletion was due to what they saw as wide misinterpretation of its intent.

"We felt that people were maybe seeing it the wrong way, seeing it as a form as weakness," Feldman explained in his subsequent clip. "It wasn't necessarily a form of weakness, it was a form of me wanting to show people that I'm human and we're human and that we bleed and we cry and have feelings just like everybody else, and when you're amidst a bunch of really negative, awful things being said, you know, you're going to react. That's just part of being human."

"It's just been, like, an emotional roller-coaster for both of us, and when such awful things are being said about somebody that you love and you care about so much, it really messes with your head," Anne added. "So I've just been trying to keep positive and keep positive for this guy right here, because he needs it, and just, uh, we're just trying to keep our chins up and be positive and show the world that we're not going anywhere anytime soon.

Feldman and Anne went on to thank their "beautiful fans and beautiful friends", acknowledging the "tremendous amount of love and support" that has also been heaped their way amid all the negativity, which — now that they've had some time to reflect on it — they're starting to see in a different light, too:

"On top of it, thank you to the haters," Feldman said. "Because, you know what? For all of your hate and for all of your evil things you say, and god-awful things that I've had to read, I just wanted to say that we're really grateful for you talking about it, because you know what? Because of you guys, we're #1 all over the world. We're trending on Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, all weekend long, and it hasn't stopped, all over one performance. So just imagine what we could do with an entire concert tour."

"We're not going anywhere," he continued. "We're here to stay. We love you, and we're going to keep going no matter what."

Bizarre or not, best get used to it.

See the performance in question below and see Feldman's second response video at his Facebook page; if you're chasing a fix from people contributing to his evident emotional breakdown, you'll have to search it out yourself.