My family loves “Two and a Half Men,” as do millions of Americans, but I always point out that Charlie Sheen gets paid almost $2 million an episode for playing Charlie Sheen. And the thing is, he can get away with things no other celebrity can and still have the public loves him because they love the scoundrel he plays on “Two and a Half Men” so much.
Take for example the past trouble Charlie has been in. Fifteen years ago, Charlie was named as one of the clients of infamous Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss. He dated porn stars in the ‘90s. Makes me wonder if he had some hand in writing his own character for the show.
Sheen was hospitalized for a cocaine overdose in 1998 and was sent to rehab. I thought maybe he had cleaned up his act a bit when he married actress Denise Richards 2005. But, Richards accused Sheen of threatening her and the couple divorced.
In 2008, he married Brook Mueller, but she too accused him of spousal abuse. This time Sheen was arrested for domestic violence on Christmas day. Not just any day of the year, but Christmas for goodness sake! Those two have been going through a less than amicable divorce.
It seemed like Sheen and Richards were working through their problems when she and their two girls went with him to New York City last October. However, Sheen trashed a hotel room and taken to the hospital for “observation.”
This past week, Sheen was taken to Cedars-Sinai suffering from abdominal pains. Rumor has it that he was partying with porn stars and had a suitcase of cocaine at his disposal. A suitcase?
Anyhow, yesterday it was announced that “Two and a Half Men” is on hiatus because Sheen has entered rehab.
I can’t help but draw a parallel between Sheen and another perennial bad boy, Robert Downey Jr. Downey went to rehab countless times before he seemed to get his life together and recover his acting success. And both, by all accounts I’ve read, show up on the set on time, ready to work and causing no problems with the production. Yet, their personal lives were spinning out of control. Another thing they have in common is people seem to really like both of the actors and genuinely root for them to recover and do what they do best – act.
If Downey could get straightened out, there’s still hope for Sheen.