Actor Charlie Sheen is opening up about the “betrayal” he felt from his father during Sheen’s struggle with addiction.
While on a press run for his new memoir, “The Book of Sheen,” the “Two and a Half Men” star expressed how he really felt about his dad, Martin Sheen, turning him in to Los Angeles authorities in 1998. Sheen has battled with substance abuse on and off for over 30 years and has now been sober for eight years. But he still harbors feelings toward his dad.
On Sept. 8, Sheen sat with Michael Strahan on “Good Morning America” reflecting on the moment his father held him accountable.
“It felt like the biggest betrayal you could possibly endure,” Sheen recalled. “I saw it as love eventually. But in the moment, it’s like, in the book, when my bodyguard comes to the bedroom door and he says, ‘The U.S. Marshals are on the way. We’re leaving in five.’”
Fans responded to the clip on People’s website.
One said, “There’s a good chance Charlie is ALIVE because his father turned him in.”
Another wrote, “It’s a tough decision that a parent made with love.”
A third typed, “Martin Sheen is a kind, good soul. He did NOT deserve to end up with a nightmare kid (Charlie) who disgraced his good name. I always felt bad for Martin, while never feeling anything but contempt for Charlie and his evil ways.”
At the time, Sheen was already dealing with repercussions from a lawsuit filed by his ex-girlfriend Brittany Ashland. The actress claimed Sheen had physically abused her by slamming her on the ground, knocking her unconscious, and splitting her lip. That December, Sheen declared no contest to the misdemeanor count of battery and, in turn, the judge gave him a sentence that avoided jail time. Instead, he had to serve two years probation, pay $2,700 in fines, 300 hours of community service and was ordered to stay away from Ashland.
CBS reported that Martin Sheen opened up in a 2008 interview with AARP explaining how he intervened in that moment.
“The only way I got to Charlie, frankly, was because he’d skipped out of the hospital. I had to pay the bill. In paying the bill, I got to see why he was in there. He’d consumed an illegal substance; he was on probation,” he said. “This was a criminal matter. And so that was the wedge; that was the leverage I had. That is what I took to the court; that’s what I took to the sheriff. It was the only way I got him.”
Despite his father’s efforts, Sheen’s legal troubles didn’t stop there. Sheen racked up other domestic violence accusations and charges over the years from women, including his ex-wife Denise Richards, and later his third ex-wife, Brooke Mueller.
In 2010, just two months after getting out of rehab, Sheen was kicked out of a hotel in New York for trashing the room. Reports claim Sheen was on cocaine and alcohol during the incident.
Sheen explained in his memoir that he tried marijuana at the tender age of 11 and moved on to cocaine in high school.
He had many visits to rehab, and his family even held an intervention for him when he was just 24. But none of those worked.
Sharing the reason behind his struggle to get sober, he told Strahan, “It’s hard to ask for help when somebody else has raised your hand for you.”
Even when he did get sober, the 60-year-old says it wasn’t to his own benefit.
In his memoir he wrote, “I didn’t get sober for me. I got sober for them. It was only a matter of time before I sneak out of a side door into the alley, where all things fun and familiar were lurking on standby.”
Sheen’s eight year sobriety began in 2017 during a driving incident with his daughter Sami Sheen.
Sami, 21, was 13 at the time and needed to be taken to an appointment. Sheen, who was going to drive her, realized he couldn’t get the job done because he was too intoxicated from drinking earlier. He ended up phoning a friend to take them instead.
He reportedly wrote, “There was only one thing that felt worse than betraying myself, and that was failing my children. In that car, on that day, with my best friend and a child I adore, I joined Sam in those mirrors and saw a guy who was desperate to finally come home for real.”
On Dec. 12, 2017, Sheen started his sobriety journey for his eldest daughter Cassandra’s birthday.
