On the eve of his 60th birthday, Charlie Sheen is reflecting on his checkered past. Once the highest-paid actor on television, Charlie has dealt with substance abuse problems and had his share of run-ins with the law. This month, the former star of Two and a Half Men is releasing a memoir entitled The Book of Sheen and a two-part Netflix documentary called aka Charlie Sheen.
He explains his goals with the two projects.
“Most of my 50s were spent apologizing to the people I hurt. I also didn’t want to write from the place of being a victim. I wasn’t, and I own everything I did. It’s just me, finally telling the stories in the way they actually happened.”
His memoir begins at the start of his life, covering his childhood when he and his three siblings would accompany their father, Martin Sheen, on movie sets.
Charlie Sheen always had a “voice of doubt”
After high school, Charlie pursued acting, gaining notoriety in the mid-1980s for films like Platoon and Wall Street. His fame grew massively through the years, and so did his lust for partying, cocaine, women, and booze. The former Golden Globe winner explained why he chose this lifestyle, despite seemingly having everything.
“There was always that voice of doubt, that it was only a matter of time before it all went away, so to enjoy it as heartily as you can,” Charlie told People.
In his documentary, Jon Cryer, who starred with him in Two and a Half Men, said he sensed that Charlie never felt he deserved success. “That was pretty insightful,” said Charlie. In 2011 the show replaced Charlie with Ashton Kutcher. Shortly after that, he gave an infamous interview on 20/20 claiming to have “tiger blood” in his veins. In his memoir, he says that testosterone cream turned him into a “raving lunatic.”
He sobered up in 2017 and hasn’t had a drink since, adding that he got off drugs before quitting booze. “I keep a [mental list] of the worst, most shameful things I’ve done, and I can look at that in my head if I feel like having a drink,” Charlie said.
It has been a long road to recovery for the actor, but according to him, self-forgiveness has been the hardest. “Forgiveness is still an evolving thing,” according to Charlie. “I still get what I call the “shame shivers.”
While he admits he’d love to return to acting, the book and documentary serve as a “reset” rather than a “comeback.”
His book hits store shelves on September 9, the day before the release of his Netflix documentary.
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