Charlie Sheen is ready to talk.
On Sept. 9, the Hollywood actor will release his autobiography (The Book of Sheen: A Memoir), paired with a documentary about his life (aka Charlie Sheen) premiering on Netflix on Sept. 10.
Sheen (née Carlos Irwin Estevez) has led a life of very public highs and lows that are rich material for an engaging read — from early life with a famous father, to his blockbuster film career in the 1980s, to a series of failed relationships, domestic abuse charges, a predilection for sex workers and a drug addiction that nearly killed him. The roller coaster kept climbing higher and dropping lower until a decade and a half ago, when the film and TV star hit a new peak, then imploded.
In 2010, Charlie Sheen began earning $1.8 million per episode of Two and a Half Men — making him the highest-paid male TV star to this day. Yet, during that same period, as he recounts in the book under a brief subchapter titled “2009-2011”, the stress of his divorce from actress Denise Richards sent Sheen back onto drugs. When CBS head Les Moonves learned of it, he offered the network’s corporate jet to send Sheen to rehab, but the actor turned him down to get sober at home instead.
Sheen says he did kick illegal substances during that time, and attributes his ensuing erratic behavior to heavy use of testosterone cream. Following a blow-up with Two and a Half Men creator Chuck Lorre, Sheen’s removal from the show, he was banned from the Warner Bros. lot, and in a pair of now-infamous interviews with NBC and ABC ranted about his “tiger blood” and “Adonis DNA” while refuting bipolar claims (“I’m bi-winning“) and drug relapse claims (“I am on a drug. It’s called Charlie Sheen. It’s not available, because if you try it once, you will die and your children will weep over your exploded body. Too much?”), and finally, a divorce from his third wife, Brooke Mueller. (Hell of a rough year.)
The actor stayed out of the headlines for a while, only to reappear in 2015 when he disclosed that he is HIV positive.
Sheen has since laid low, and claims to be sober and to have straightened his life out — even appearing sporadically in film and TV roles.
Now, as the Hollywood veteran turns 60, he is telling his side of the story, and doing so with undeniable flair. His publisher, Gallery books, insists he did not use a ghost writer. And while tiger blood may no longer course through his veins, he’s just as adept at grabbing your attention. Here are some of the more memorable passages:
On playing ping-pong as a 10-year-old with O.J. Simpson:
“Please understand that I’m still describing his ping-pong skills when I say: His right hand was fukken lethal [sic].”
The young Sheen was on set with his father and co-star O.J. Simpson. Sheen challenged Simpson to a ping-pong match. It lasted over 21 sets, with Sheen holding his own, until the ultra-competitive Simpson switched hands with his paddle and unleashed a fury on the child to win.
On losing his virginity as a high school sophomore to a Las Vegas escort named Candy:
“She was Ann-Margret in her prime with a Mastercard swiper. (I didn’t care that the swipe took longer than the sex.)”
Sheen and a high school buddy joined Sheen’s father, Martin Sheen, on a trip to Las Vegas, and slept in an adjoining hotel room. Young Charlie snuck into his father’s room one night to steal his dad’s credit card and used it to pay an escort for her services. (Sheen makes sure to clarify that he went first.)
On Johnny Depp getting him hooked on cigarettes during the filming of Platoon:
“He had successfully converted one nonsmoker on each of his previous three films.”
Sheen claims that, by the time he quit smoking in 2019, he had inhaled some 25 miles of cigarettes laid butt to tip. It was Johnny Depp who introduced Sheen (then a nonsmoker) to the habit. And for that, Sheen says he’ll send Depp the bill for a new lung “should I ever need one.”
On his 1992 introduction to crack through an ex-girlfriend named Sandy:
“Sandy and that drug rewired my frontal cortex into light-speed oneness times two.”
Sheen writes that his introduction to crack cocaine came via a woman he dated briefly, whom he calls Sandy. One night, after they’d stopped dating, Sandy called Sheen to pick her up from some situation she was in. Sheen did, and took her back home with him to Malibu. It was there, in bed, that Sandy passed Sheen a crack pipe and told him not to overthink it and just inhale.
On his near-fatal cocaine overdose in 1998:
“I didn’t have to wait for the second dose to kick in; they both hit me at the same time.”
In an attempt to get sober, Sheen was clearing out his house of drugs when he came across some needles and a baggie of cocaine. Looking to emulate movies like Trainspotting, he boiled the coke into a liquid and injected himself. Feeling nothing, he administered a second dose, which led to a near-fatal overdose. Sheen’s live-in bodyguard, Zip, called 911, and Sheen claims the paramedics alerted the media, such that when he came to in the ambulance, then arrived at the hospital, press was already there.
On facing domestic abuse charges by an ex-girlfriend in 1997:
“In a move to defend myself — my eyes more specifically, as she was trying to stab them with her jagged car keys — I got behind her …”
As Sheen recounts it, he and a girlfriend he refers to as “Jane” (timing and details would suggest “Jane” is Brittany Ashland) were having a normal evening when Jane made a disparaging comment about a photo of Sheen’s then 13-year-old daughter, Cassandra. Sheen then called a friend to pick up Jane and take her home, let slip an insult at her, and that’s when Jane began to attack him. As Sheen alleges, he acted in self-dense, and Jane’s cut lip (which required seven stitches) just sort of happened in the scuffle.
On Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss:
“I was watching myself watching Heidi stare at me with a look of betrayal and sadness.”
Sheen first met Fleiss in a VIP lounge called On the Rox (Steve Bing introduced them). He quickly fell in with her and her escort service, and when money ran out, he would use checks (and American Express Travelers Cheques, at that) to pay Fleiss and those in her employ. With an evident sense of shame, Sheen recalls cutting a deal with the feds for immunity, and spilling the details to law enforcement with Fleiss and her lawyers in the room. Sheen then claims the feds tried to use him as their star witness, and threatened to throw the book at him if he didn’t agree. When he asked to see the evidence against him, the feds let up.
On being drunk on scotch while flying an Air France jet with passengers aboard:
“Leaning the yoke ever so slightly to the left, I felt like the craft was reading my mind …”
On the flight home from his French honeymoon (and in the heat of a dispute with his first wife, Donna Peele), Sheen downed eight shots of scotch, only to then be invited to the cockpit by the starstruck crew of the aircraft. The pilot dressed Sheen up in his uniform, then both he and the co-pilot took turns snapping photos with Sheen. The plane in autopilot and the pilot’s seat empty, Sheen asked if he could sit. The pilots agreed, took the plane off autopilot, and a very drunk Sheen was able to fly and steer the A330 somewhere over the Atlantic with 200 other passengers onboard.
On discovering his HIV diagnosis:
“I’d been in that state for fifty hours, doing everything I could to avoid the hospital.”
A series of excruciating headaches and a sensation of fire in his veins led Sheen to believe he was on the brink of death. Finally, after over two days of it, sure he’d learn he had spinal meningitis or brain cancer or something fatal, he went to the hospital. Instead, he learned he had HIV.
On his sexual encounters with other men (or “the other side of the menu”):
“Was some of it fun? You betcha. Was the ‘other side’ in play without crack? Never.”
Though he only confirms it in a TV interview, Sheen seems to suggest in this passage that he had sexual encounters with men while on crack, and that those encounters led to extortion attempts.
