Actor Jerry O'Connell apologized directly to his Stand By Me costar Wil Wheaton for not supporting Wheaton when he was enduring emotional abuse from his parents.
During an interview on The Talk, O'Connell brought up Wheaton's childhood abuse, which he opened up about in 2021. "I heard before you talk about some of the struggles you were going through during Stand by Me ... I do want to apologize for not being there more for you when you were younger," O'Connell said, even as Wheaton tried to interrupt and wave away the apology. "But I want to say, to the bigger picture, you never know what someone is going through when you're with them," O'Connell continued, expanding the sentiment to address overall mental health awareness. "I don't feel guilt, but I just want to say I'm sorry I wasn't there for you more," he concluded.
O'Connell and Wheaton starred alongside River Phoenix and Corey Feldman in Stand By Me. The 1986 classic coming-of-age drama tells the poignant tale of four boys who discover the dead body of a missing boy. O'Connell and Wheaton were 11 and 12, respectively, at the time of filming. Wheaton gave an empathetic response to O'Connell's apology, saying, "I deeply appreciate that -- [but] you were 11. How could you have possibly known? Also, everyone in the audience who is a trauma survivor knows this: We're real, real, real good at covering up what we're going through."
Wheaton revealed in May 2021 that he suffered mental anguish during his childhood and admitted it wasn't his choice to become a child actor. "My parents forced me to do it -- my mother made me do it," he shared. "My mother coached me to go into her agency and tell the children's agent, 'I want to do what mommy does.' And through a combination of an incredible emotional abuse from my father and a lot of manipulation, using me, from my mother -- it really put me in that place."
Wheaton previously admitted in 2018 to struggling with depression and anxiety throughout his childhood, describing at one point having "daily" panic attacks. "When I tried to reach out to the adults in my life for help, they didn't take me seriously," he said. "For my entire childhood, my mom told me that I was a worry wart, and my dad said I was overly dramatic about everything, and that's just the way it was."
Stand By Me is currently available to stream on Netflix.
Source: YouTube, via EW