Charlie Sheen has explained his Two and a Half Men meltdown from his perspective, saying he was fired from the show after struggling with drugs and stress. Now Chuck Lorre is offering his perspective on that tumultuous time in his new memoir, Sitcom.
In an excerpt provided to Vanity Fair, the Two and a Half Men co-creator said the CBS show’s production began to unravel in Season 8. “Charlie started calling in sick all the time,” Lorre wrote. “The typical excuse was food poisoning, usually bad clams. There were a lot of emergency dental appointments. Once I was informed he would not be attending rehearsal because his Bic lighter had exploded and burned off his eyelashes. Another time, his manager bragged to me about having to fly across the country, with a bag full of cash, in order to purchase a home video sex tape starring his client.”
Then came an incident in Aspen, in which Sheen was accused of threatening his third wife with a knife, and then came an incident in New York City, in which an adult film star said Sheen made her frightened. Lorre said that he was afraid of what would happen during Sheen’s three-day weekends or the week-long breaks he and the other Two and a Half Mencast members got every two weeks.
Eventually, Lorre reached a breaking point as Sheen filmed a scene with costar Melanie Lynskey. “He couldn’t remember any of his lines and had to use the furniture to keep himself upright,” Lorre said. “Melanie was terrified. It was clear to everyone that this man, whom we’d all grown to love, was in trouble. I had no choice but to shut down the show.”
Sheen initially accepted Warner Bros.’ offer to send him to “the best rehab available” via private jet, but the actor then decided to do rehab at home, where was “getting loaded all at time,” Lorre added.
After that — and after Sheen started trashing Lorre online and in the press — Warner Bros. fired Sheen, and Lorre brought in Ashton Kutcher to replace him for Two and a Half Men’s four additional seasons.
Years later, Lorre reconnected with Sheen when the writer needed to a celebrity to play an in-the-hole-gambler version of themselves in the HBO Max series Bookie.
“So I called Charlie,” Lorre wrote. “And he couldn’t have been more gracious and grateful. We didn’t get into the weeds about the whole Two and a Half Men nightmare. It was just over. The morning of the first Bookietable read we hugged. Not a show business hug. A real one. Like when you see an old friend after a long time apart. And then he proceeded to kill at the table. It was a comedy master class. Almost as if he’d been preparing to play a degenerate gambler his whole life.”