Hollywood actor, Charlie Sheen has continued to tell his own story.
In his new memoir, The Book of Sheen, the actor recounts a life marked by chaos, survival, and unlikely second chances. He reveals he was “born dead” — strangled by his umbilical cord and revived — and that at 15 he lost his virginity to a Las Vegas prostitute, paid for with his father Martin Sheen’s credit card.
The book traces Sheen’s wild descent into drugs and excess: a near-fatal cocaine overdose in 1998, seven trips to rehab, and his HIV diagnosis in 2011. Now 60, with eight years of sobriety — and nearly a decade of celibacy — Sheen says he feels nothing but gratitude.
“A lot of this should be viewed as gravy,” he said. “It’s borrowed time, or maybe my 10th life, because I think I get one more than all those cats.”
The Netflix documentary aka Charlie Sheen, premiering this week, features interviews with family and friends, including former Two and a Half Men co-star Jon Cryer, who admits he was hesitant to participate. Cryer reflects: “Part of the cycle of Charlie’s life is that he hits rock bottom, rebuilds, and then burns it all down again. I didn’t want to be a part of that cycle.”
Sheen took the comments in stride, joking, “Well, s–t, Jon, you could have told me that a couple decades ago and saved me half of what I spent on therapy and rehab.”
The memoir and documentary revisit his infamous 2011 meltdown: his firing from Two and a Half Men, public tirades against CBS and creator Chuck Lorre, his “tiger blood” claims, and his life with two girlfriends while abusing drugs and testosterone cream. That year he was rushed to the hospital, diagnosed as HIV-positive, and later spent two years in Mexico drinking heavily.
His sex life was legendary — threesomes, nights at the Playboy Mansion, prostitutes, and even same-sex encounters while high. “I flipped the menu over,” he says in the film. Yet despite his history, Sheen says he has been celibate for years. “If I don’t have a girlfriend and I’m not paying for it, then I think the math is pretty simple,” he said. “It was a needed break from those pursuits. That’s not me slamming the door on the future. I’d absolutely welcome companionship again.”
One striking revelation: among the many substances he abused, ketamine was never one of them. “I never did it,” he said, adding that it “wasn’t a color I would look good in.” He reflects on Matthew Perry’s death from ketamine overdose, recalling how they connected through shared struggles. Perry once prayed for fame after seeing Sheen on the news — a story Sheen says left him both humbled and amused.
The book also touches on Sheen’s relationships. He is father to five children, including daughters Sami and Lola with ex-wife Denise Richards, and twins Bob and Max with Brooke Mueller. He admits he hasn’t spoken to Sami for a year due to her OnlyFans career, but hopes for reconciliation. “It saddens me, but I have faith it can be restored,” he said.
Sheen, who rose to fame with films like Platoon, Wall Street, and Major League, is candid about the bad movies he made just to pay for drugs. “I was always pretty good friends with my dealers,” he admitted. “When you let him stay for the party, you usually get a better rate.”
Now, with his HIV under control and a new perspective, Sheen says his story is about choices, not victimhood. “It’s really the story of a little kid just trying to find his way back home,” he writes. “And I hope people can relate to that.”