Surreal Life's Jerri vs. Corey Feldman, Round 2!
Just call us reality rabble rousers. Survivor's Jerri Manthey recently has been talkin' trash about Corey Feldman, her celebrity housemate on The Surreal Life (airing tonight at 9 pm/ET on the WB). She even dissed his soon-to-be-televised wedding! Now, TV Guide Online is giving the Stand by Me and License to Drive star equal time. Listen up!
First off, Jerri accuses "child actor" Corey of playing to the camera too much. "Reality TV is not reality," he responds. "It's not real when they mess up a camera setup and ask you for a second take! You have producers whispering in your ear and suggesting things; it's not as organic as they want you to believe. I think somebody who's as inexperienced around the entertainment industry as Jerri is misconstrued that."
How does Corey feel about Jerri labeling his wedding guests "white trash"? "The most important thing to be clarified above all is, in no way was it my idea to get married on the show," he insists. "I'm not a publicity whore. The producers suggested it, and we hashed it out for days. Jerri said, 'You don't want to get married on TV. These reality shows suck and they'll twist things.' I think the key to her resentment against me is that I didn't take her profound advice.
"Now," Corey continues, "Jerri's just taking cheap shots at me, in an obvious attempt to get her 15 minutes in the spotlight. To me, it's a bit disgraceful. She's never done a real acting job — and I think that's what she's trying to accomplish — so I don't think her making enemies in the business is going to help her any.
"Guess what?" he adds. "All us roommates were having dinner at [90210 star] Gabby Carteris's house, having authentic downtime away from the cameras. Don't we find it mighty coincidental that Jerri was the only one who didn't show up? There was no game there for her. But every press day we do, she's the first one there."
Overall, Surreal Life hasn't been easy for Corey. "I've never had worse press over anything in my life — including drug arrests! — than I have over this show," he laughs. "Anybody who thinks I'm running with some golden ticket on my way to the Willy Wonka factory is completely out of their minds. It's the opposite. I have never been called a 'has-been' in my career, until I did this show. That's a true fact. I've been called a lot of labels, and last summer, I wrote my Former Child Actor album about that.
"I've always been 'former teen star' or 'former drug addict.' The E! True Hollywood Story didn't do me any justice, and I wanted to clear up misconceptions on this show. But I don't think it's the end all be all of my career. With this, it's like, 'has-been, loser, C-lister, D-lister,' and I'm like, 'Why did I sign onto this thing? This is terrible!'
"I hope people can look past at that," Corey sighs. "Hey, look at my track record. If drugs didn't take me down, I doubt anything anybody writes can."
