When Charlie Sheen thinks again to the years he spent hooked on alcohol, cocaine, drugs and crack, he remembers projectile-vomiting blood over his balcony. Or his arms shaking so severely that he couldn’t pour himself a glass of Patrón Silver.
These reminiscences come again to him with out warning, dangling over his ideas like a cell over a crib, when he’s driving down the Pacific Coast Freeway blaring Led Zeppelin, or watching the Cincinnati Reds at house. For almost eight years, these ideas, as disturbing as they’re, have helped to maintain him from crashing again into chaos.
On Dec. 12, 2017, Sheen — a four-time Emmy nominee for “Two and a Half Males,” and for a time considered one of Hollywood’s highest-paid tv actors on a present with 15 million viewers per episode — obtained sober. He has been pretty quiet since then, teetering on the verge of changing into a kind of what-happened-to-that-man conditions. In 2023, he appeared in a number of episodes of the comedy sequence “Bookie,” which reunited him along with his previous “Two and a Half Males” boss/nemesis, Chuck Lorre. Clips of Sheen asserting that tiger blood runs via his veins not gentle up social media (although you may nonetheless discover them). He’s content material hanging out in Southern California along with his 5 children and three grandchildren, getting smoothies and pedicures along with his daughter Lola or watching sports activities.
He has additionally hung out alone at house writing a memoir, “The E-book of Sheen,” due out from Gallery Books on Tuesday. For years, rumors have swirled about him. The ebook, together with the upcoming Netflix documentary “aka Charlie Sheen,” has him dealing with these rumors head on. Sure, all of them. He calls the ebook an “all-access, backstage move to the reality.”
I met Sheen, 60, in August on the Fairmont Miramar Resort & Bungalows in Santa Monica. The sunny California scene, with kids splashing within the pool and vacationers brunching at cafe tables, appeared a little bit cheery for a man whose memoir begins with the road, “On September 3, 1965, in New York Metropolis, at 10:58 p.m., I used to be born useless.”
That night time, his mom, Janet Sheen, and father, Martin Sheen (actual title Ramon Antonio Gerard Estevez), watched in panic as Dr. Irwin Chabon (deliberately misspelled “Shaybone” within the ebook to seize “its phonic vibe”) revived their son after an “umbilical-strangulation” emergency. The child was named Carlos Irwin Estevez in his honor. The household, together with Charlie Sheen’s older brothers Ramon and Emilio and youthful sister Renée, finally settled in Malibu. As Sheen writes within the ebook, when he began performing and landed his first gig three weeks out of highschool, “Carlos advanced into Charlie, and Estevez made manner for Sheen.”
On the Fairmont, Sheen, double-fisting a bottle of chocolate Muscle Milk and a vape pen, apologized for choosing a loud spot, so we moved to a tucked-away desk. He pulled a completed copy of the ebook out of his satchel so he may present me the colour picture inserts. I used to be a little bit startled that this onetime self-proclaimed “excessive priest Vatican murderer warlock” now carries a satchel, full with a travel-size espresso spoon as a result of he doesn’t just like the sticks they hand out on airplanes. I used to be anticipating him to blaze up on a Harley with a Bowie knife in his boot.
Sheen stated the “preliminary flashpoint” for the ebook got here in 2018. After a long time spent fighting substance abuse, together with crack, tequila and testosterone cream that he was “slathering on in mind-altering gobs,” as he writes, he was clearheaded sufficient to start out taking inventory of his life. He had been strolling round with the “born useless” line in his head for years, and he’d written early pages that he confirmed to Jennifer Bergstrom, the senior vice chairman and writer at Gallery.
“She stated all of it isn’t gold, however there’s a little bit little bit of gold in all places,” Sheen stated. “It was distinctive sufficient for them to get curious.”
Sheen had loads of materials to mine. There was his early childhood spent touring to his father’s movie units. Younger Charlie lunched with Marlon Brando on “Apocalypse Now” and performed a “heated and surreal” sport of desk tennis with O.J. Simpson on the set of the 1976 film “The Cassandra Crossing.” Then got here the stutter he developed in third grade. He describes it as a “mind glitch” that also plagues him, and he believes it was one of many issues that drove him to drink. There was additionally the early stardom with “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Platoon” and “Wall Road.” After which, in fact, the spectacular yearslong crash and burn that spawned one million unflattering headlines and accusations.
“I obtained overwhelmed and I didn’t search the assistance that I wanted,” he stated of his most tumultuous years, which led to him being fired from “Two and a Half Males” in 2011. “I simply figured, ‘I obtained this.’ However I didn’t.”
Not like many movie star memoirists, Sheen didn’t work with a ghostwriter (“I can by no means declare stuff that’s not mine, even when it’s a foul dad joke,” he stated). His is presumably the one movie star memoir that spells the phrase cool “kool” and dude as “dood.” For instance, he writes that Tom Cruise is “one of many koolest guys ever.” Should you take into account that Sheen grew up in Malibu making no-budget Tremendous 8 horror motion pictures along with his brother Emilio Estevez and his buddy Chris Penn (brother to Sean, who was a part of the scene too), the bro-ification of the English language is smart. Once I requested about these linguistic prospers, which come throughout as endearing somewhat than ridiculous, Sheen stated it simply made sense to write down it that manner.
“That’s how I see the phrases in my thoughts,” he stated. “In all probability from taking a look at a pack of cigarettes as a 5-year-old.”
Andrew Renzi, who directed the documentary, described Sheen to me as “an icon as recognized for his missteps as he’s for his belovedness.” Renzi spent a few 12 months attending to know Sheen earlier than they began filming, and he interviewed a number of individuals from his life, together with his ex-wives Denise Richards and Brooke Mueller and his “Two and a Half Males” co-star Jon Cryer, in addition to Sean Penn, Lorre, Sheen’s brother Ramon, and Heidi Fleiss, a connection throughout her transient Nineteen Nineties reign because the “Hollywood Madam.”
Estevez and Martin Sheen didn’t take part within the movie. This can little question ignite rumors of familial estrangement, so let’s dispel them. One of many strongest via traces within the memoir is the closeness of the whole Sheen clan. It’s additionally one of the heartbreaking.
His dad and mom and three siblings stood by him via interventions (Rob Lowe and Clint Eastwood participated within the first one), rehabs and near-overdoses. After which got here his poorly obtained touring present in 2011, dubbed “My Violent Torpedo of Fact/Dying Is Not an Possibility,” which Sheen described as “an unspectacular quasar of a second.” For years, his household and mates lived with the concern that the cellphone would ring someday, and it could be that name, the one which anybody who has liked somebody who struggles with habit prays won’t ever come.
Once I spoke to Estevez, he stated he and his dad didn’t take part within the documentary just because they watched a tough reduce and felt as if their voices, their tales, weren’t essential. (Martin Sheen declined to remark for this text, as did Richards.) Probably the most stunning a part of his brother’s memoir, Estevez stated, was how he has managed to maintain his humorousness intact, regardless of all of the darkness.
“I’m undecided I might have been in a position to do this,” he stated. By means of the hardest years, when his brother was at his worst, their mother had a mantra that helped them cope: The place there’s life, there’s hope.
“I feel Charlie has arrived at his fact, and that’s an enormous victory for him,” Estevez stated.
His supporters additionally embrace individuals who labored with him throughout a few of his most uproarious years.
“He was not the ‘dangerous boy’ the general public had the proper to imagine,” Holland Taylor, who performed his mom on “Two and a Half Males” for eight seasons, stated in an e-mail. “Quite the opposite, he was probably the most ready and disciplined individual I’ve ever labored with on a sitcom. He’s depraved sensible, has had unimaginable experiences, has a busy and analytical thoughts.”
Sheen labored intently on the memoir along with his editor, Aimée Bell, who stated she trusted his creative selections and had no intention of downshifting his “kool” into cool.
“I feel what shocked me probably the most was for somebody who ought to be within the Guinness World Information ebook for doing probably the most crack and dwelling, he has a photographic reminiscence,” she stated. She was additionally shocked that in edits, Sheen, who by his personal admission ended up with a 1.2 G.P.A. in highschool, cared deeply about issues like dangling modifiers and em dashes. “I’m blown away by anybody who brings that a lot to the get together,” she stated.
On the Fairmont, a server introduced Sheen a cup of espresso however forgot the spoon. No massive deal. He was absolutely ready along with his personal. “Ha! Take a look at that,” he stated, holding it within the air triumphantly. This model of Sheen, one who’s relaxed, humble, perhaps a little bit goofy, appears distant from {the teenager} who misplaced his virginity in Vegas to a redheaded escort named Sweet, or the man who sneaked out of rehab to get together with a posse referred to as the Stingrays.
“Our collective hippocampi have been soaked in banshee-Drano earlier than even making it to the lodge,” Sheen writes within the ebook of considered one of his many bacchanalian nights with the Stingrays. The partying almost killed him. Individuals alongside the way in which obtained damage. Not everybody will get an opportunity at redemption through memoir and film, however Sheen isn’t right here to make excuses. He’s right here to return clear, and hopefully discover a little bit peace in that.
“It took the bullets out of so many weapons on the market nonetheless pointed at me,” he stated. “The identical is true in regards to the stuff within the ebook and the documentary. That is one of the best ways to cancel hostage calls for as soon as and for all and never really feel like that is one thing I have to take to my grave. What’s that saying? We’re as sick as our secrets and techniques.”
When Matthew Perry’s memoir got here out in 2022, Sheen stated he learn it in a day. They didn’t know one another effectively, however he meant to contact Perry and regrets that he by no means did. He writes about Perry in his personal ebook, in regards to the non-public males’s group he hosted that Sheen attended a number of occasions, cautious so as to add that he’s “not violating any code” speaking about it. He writes, “Matt and I shared a deeper fact we noticed in one another — we have been each, as Bobby Dee Jay used to say, ‘veterans of the unspeakable.’” Bobby Dee Jay, when you’re questioning, is Robert Downey Jr.
These years, those that is perhaps thought of “unspeakable” to some, will not be glossed over within the memoir. It takes readers from these early days in Malibu to seedy Santa Monica therapeutic massage parlors and the Playboy mansion. It careens via marriages, divorces, fame, infamy, cash earned and misplaced, and mind-bending extra. He recounts having intercourse with males whereas he was utilizing crack, one thing he hasn’t beforehand acknowledged. One of the crucial harrowing sections comes after Sheen is identified with H.I.V. and he takes off to Mexico for a single motive: to drink.
“These issues will not be enjoyable to learn, they usually weren’t enjoyable to dwell, however I wouldn’t commerce them for the world,” Sheen stated. As of late, he’s not surrounded by temptation. He’d somewhat watch his beloved baseball than embark on a bender in Vegas. “I’m by no means within the presence of a fats bag that I’ve to speak myself out of or depart the room to keep away from,” he stated of this calmer period.
Getting sober doesn’t occur by magic. There’s no single components to make it so. Sheen tried Alcoholics Nameless for a number of years, however it by no means clicked for him. He stopped ingesting for good due to his kids. He needed to be the one they referred to as once they wanted a trip someplace, and, much more vital than that, he needed to be the one to drive. Sheen is now shut along with his kids, and his son Max lives with him full time. He’s not in a relationship, and whereas he isn’t against it, the “sole focus” for the previous few years has been his children.
“There’s such the Aristocracy in that, for me,” he stated. “To be dependable and constant with out being predictable.”
He’s open to performing once more however isn’t actively pursuing it. “I’m a little bit out of form,” he stated. “I may do one other sitcom falling off the bed, and that’s nothing in opposition to sitcoms. That’s only a gear that’s readily accessible. Being proper now snug sufficient on digicam to ship one thing actually dramatic would take a little bit little bit of a warm-up.”
Writing the memoir is the toughest and most rewarding job he’s ever had, Sheen stated. As he heads into this new section of his life, one the place his previous will probably get pulled out of the shadows and judged another time, he feels prepared. He has nothing left to cover.
“I’m protecting that stuff shut,” Sheen stated of the darkest moments. The issues that give him “disgrace shivers” out of nowhere. When these reminiscences enter his thoughts, he wonders what he was considering, how he may have let issues get so excessive, so harmful.
“Then I’ve to keep in mind that second isn’t what at the moment is about,” he stated, sitting there within the evident noon solar. “It doesn’t exist anymore, however that doesn’t imply it wasn’t actual.”
