Charlie Sheen in 2006. MJ Kim/Getty Images for RMCC Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment 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 Sept. 10. Sheen (nee 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 rollercoaster 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 sub-chapter 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. Related Stories Lifestyle Why Zosia Mamet Quit One of the Biggest Shows on Television (Exclusive Excerpt) Lifestyle Thomas Pynchon Predicted L.A.'s ICE Age 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 around - 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 a 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 non-smoker) 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 names 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.