Drugs may or may not have caused yesterday's tragic end to Corey Haim's life, but they definitely led to the end of his engagement.
In an interview airing on E!'s Daily 10 tonight, ex-fiancée Tiffany Shepis reveals how the actor's lifelong issues with addiction led to the demise of their relationship.
The 30-year-old horror film actress and former E! Wild On guest host first met the Lost Boys star "years ago." When his substance abuse became a problem, she bent over backward to try to help sober him up.
"I was trying, like everyone wants to do, to be Mother Teresa and help somebody, like Corey [Feldman] did and tons of other people in the past," she says. "I moved him out to Arizona thinking it would help and get him away from everything and the people who were setting him up to fail."
Shepis claims she's a "pretty big advocate against" taking drugs, but it wasn't until she realized she was unable to force Haim to change that she knew she had to put an end to the relationship.
"It didn't work out," she says of the move to Tucson. "I broke everything off before he left. There was just no progression, and if somebody doesn't want to get better..."
The pair regained contact when Haim returned to Los Angeles in early 2009, but stopped speaking six months ago.
"I would go back and forth," she says of their communication. "I would get insane phone calls, insane emails. Like stuff that you can't even imagine a person saying to another person. And then I would run into him and he would look half OK and look like he'd gained some weight. I think he had like little mini, two-week instances of sobriety and then hard-core falloffs."
Shepis says the star's weapon of choice was typically prescription meds rather than illegal drugs.
"It was only pills," she says.
Shepis' younger sister, Becky, recalls Thanksgiving 2008, the night the pair announced their engagement to her family.
"He was completely gone," she tells E! News. "He kept disappearing and everyone was like, 'Where is Corey?' He would just go hide away...be in the bathroom."
That said, Becky believes the 1980s icon was serious about his feelings for her sister.
"He was really enthusiastic about my sister and wanting to be with her," she says. "He was sweet. My family was pretty suspicious about him and his sobriety, but everyone really liked him. He was welcoming to all of us as if he wanted to be a part of the family so bad."
However, Becky's visits to the couple raised her concerns.
"He was always out of it," she admits. "He always had a glazed-over look. He kind of just looked hazy, not all there."
For more on Corey and Tiffany's tumultuous relationship and Haim's efforts to get sober, tune in to the Daily 10 tonight at 7:30 p.m. on E!.
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Corey's is just one of many sad tales of Hollywood Dying Young.