Charlie Sheen’s revelation
Actor says reason he disclosed news was to stop others blackmailing him
FORMER Two and A Half Men television star Charlie Sheen is HIV positive. Sheen, 50, told NBC’s Today show yesterday he was diagnosed about four years ago and said the reason he disclosed the information was because he was being blackmailed.
“I am here to admit that I am in fact HIV positive,” Sheen said, saying he was “not entirely sure” how he acquired the virus.
“It’s a hard three letters to absorb,” he added.
Sheen, who is three times divorced, played the womanising bachelor Charlie Harper on top-rated US comedy series Two and A Half Men for eight years before being fired in 2011 for bad behaviour that included cocaine-fuelled partying with porn stars and a conviction for assaulting his ex-wife.
At the time, he was the highest paid actor on US television with a reported annual salary of $1.8 million. After he was sacked from Two and a Half Men, Sheen also starred in the cable TV comedy Anger Management, which was closely based on his life, from 2012 to last year.
Asked whether he had transmitted HIV to anyone since his diagnosis, Sheen said yesterday, “impossible”.
The actor said he had “always led with condoms and honesty when it came to my condition”.
Sheen said one of the reasons he disclosed the news about his health was to stop others from blackmailing him.
He would not disclose how many people he was paying for their silence, but said the payments reached into millions of dollars to people he once considered in his inner circle.
“What people forget is this is money, money they are taking from my children,” Sheen said, referring to his five kids and one grandchild.
“I thought they could be helpful. Instead, my trust turned into their treason,” Sheen said, adding he will no longer pay those people.
“I think I released myself from this prison today,” he said.
The announcement of his appearance on the Today show came hours after a US tabloid named Sheen as the actor at the centre of speculation that an unnamed Hollywood star with a reputation as a wild-living womaniser has been secretly HIV positive for years.
According to the National Enquirer, “decades of debauchery” have finally caught up with Sheen, who has spent much of the past year out of the public spotlight.
The publication promised to reveal later this week the findings of an 18month investigation “that has uncovered how television’s one-time highest-paid star potentially spread the devastating virus to dozens of unsuspecting women”.
The virus weakens the immune system and can develop into Aids. It is claimed Sheen had already started to receive a “regimen of medication” to counter the effects of the disease and that his “outlook is positive”.
Sheen has refused to comment on the claims and the Enquirer said he denied them when put to the actor last year.
The star’s appearance on national TV conveniently pre-empted the Enquirer’s
Sheen has a tawdry history of alcohol and drug abuse, as well as his use of prostitutes