{"id":57238,"date":"2025-09-11T12:27:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T12:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/57238\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T12:27:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T12:27:12","slug":"charlie-sheens-memoir-gets-derailed-by-tales-of-debauchery-just-like-his-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/57238\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlie Sheen\u2019s memoir gets derailed by tales of debauchery \u2013 just like his career"},"content":{"rendered":"

The hit sitcom gave Sheen his best-known role, and made him, for a while, the highest-paid actor on television; here, though, there is no juicy behind-the-scenes reminiscing and little by way of gossipy anecdote.<\/p>\n

His eight years on the show are all but breezed over, subsumed by a granular recounting of his longstanding drug addiction. But that is, to a large extent, the story of Sheen.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a metatextual component to this book, which devotes much of its first half to interesting and involved recollections about Sheen\u2019s work on films such as Platoon and Wall Street, before his extracurricular misadventures steal focus.<\/p>\n

\"AKA<\/p>\n

AKA Charlie Sheen<\/p>\n

Sheen \u2013 now eight years sober, speaking to us as a quelled tornado \u2013 doesn\u2019t glorify his drug use or womanising, but handles it with a sort of wry irreverence. He knows as well as anyone that it can\u2019t be fenced into a chapter; his struggles aren\u2019t some discrete facet of his celebrity, but the very essence of it.<\/p>\n

\n

Sheen may be an early example of what\u2019s now called a \u201cnepo baby\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ever since the months-long, highly public and reputation-ruining 2011 meltdown that saw him fired from Two and a Half Men and led to a succession of outrageous, drug-fuelled videos, Sheen has been synonymous with his addictions; his artistry as a performer feels almost entirely forgotten.<\/p>\n

And yet, the specifics of Sheen\u2019s life provide a number of interesting windows on to the industry. His father Martin Sheen rose to fame as a stellar actor in films such as Badlands and Apocalypse Now, before later ageing into a dignified career-capping stint as The West Wing\u2019s commander-in-chief.<\/p>\n

\"Martin<\/p>\n

Martin Sheen with family Emilio Estevez, Ramon Estevez, Charlie Sheen and Renee Estevez. Photo: Getty<\/p>\n

His father\u2019s work gave Sheen early exposure to the film industry; a substantial early chunk of the book is devoted to his experience as a child around the set of Apocalypse Now in the Philippines.<\/p>\n

Sheen\u2019s decision to follow in his father\u2019s footsteps seems to be born of a genuine fascination with film: as a child, he would shoot his own amateur efforts on a Super 8 camera, alongside his brother Emilio Estevez, and future-star friends such as Sean Penn and Rob Lowe.<\/p>\n

Sheen may be an early example of what\u2019s now called a \u201cnepo baby\u201d.<\/p>\n

In Sheen\u2019s telling, however, his success was largely unconnected to his father\u2019s, and the decision to adopt his father\u2019s stage surname motivated chiefly by a wish to distance himself from the stigma of his own teenage delinquency.<\/p>\n

\"Charlie<\/p>\n

Charlie Sheen with Princess Diana at the Odeon Leicester Square premiere of the film Hot Shots in 1991<\/p>\n

Whatever the reason, opportunities did come expediently: Sheen\u2019s early roles, in films such as the Best Picture-winning Platoon, and John Milius\u2019s Red Dawn, established him as a viable movie star with a big future. Like Estevez, he was often grouped alongside the set of young stars known as the \u201cBrat Pack\u201d.<\/p>\n

As the book pivots increasingly to Sheen\u2019s off-camera antics, and his worsening involvement with illicit substances, we see the gloss of his movie career fade away.<\/p>\n

About much of his own oeuvre, Sheen is downright damning: he describes five of his movies made in 1997 and 1998 as being \u201crancid\u201d, dismissing the political thriller Shadow Conspiracy with the quip, \u201cIf a film could be liquid s*** you have to drink, this one comes with a funnel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sheen<\/p>\n

Sheen starred with Lindsay Lohan in Scary Movie 5<\/p>\n

Thrown into the mix are a collection of the sort of amusing, name-droppy anecdotes you might expect from a Hollywood memoir.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s the time Sheen played table tennis with OJ Simpson (\u201cPlease understand that I\u2019m still describing his ping-pong skills when I say: his right hand was f**ken lethal\u201d).<\/p>\n

Or the time state governor Bill Clinton allegedly made a creepy remark after coming into the vicinity of Sheen\u2019s young then-girlfriend. Or the time Sheen witnessed the ravenous eating habits of a late-in-life Marlon Brando.<\/p>\n

\n

A violent altercation with a former partner is explained away as self-defence<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Throughout the book, there\u2019s a typographical playfulness that skirts the edge of affectation: things aren\u2019t cool but \u201ckool\u201d; men aren\u2019t dudes but \u201cdoods\u201d.<\/p>\n

When it comes to some of his scandals, Sheen\u2019s tone is more exculpatory than contrite; a violent altercation with a former partner is explained away as self-defence, with Sheen suggesting that the story had become \u201cso radically spun you\u2019d think I was a serial killer\u201d. His adult life was thoroughly messy, and The Book of Sheen often seems more concerned with stating this fact than trying to make sense of the mess. But maybe that\u2019s for the best.<\/p>\n

\"Sheen<\/p>\n

Sheen starred in Two And A Half Men with Jon Cryer and Angus T Jones<\/p>\n

This new memoir coincides with the release of a Netflix documentary on Sheen, and the actor has embellished both with a series of candid interviews \u2013 a far cry from the sort of manic televised confabs he was delivering mid-breakdown.<\/p>\n

He has spoken about his life with HIV, having been diagnosed in 2011, and about his sexual experiences with other men while under the influence of drugs. (He addresses these dalliances briefly and somewhat euphemistically in the book itself.)<\/p>\n

What\u2019s specifically worthwhile about The Book of Sheen, however, is the time it devotes to those less-lurid chapters of his life \u2013 to the not-insignificant film career that he for a time had, and the unknowable hypothetical one that he never did.<\/p>\n

The story of Sheen\u2019s life is, sadly, the story of derailment. That the book itself is derailed by his demons might be frustrating \u2013 but it\u2019s certainly fitting. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The hit sitcom gave Sheen his best-known role, and made him, for a while, the highest-paid actor on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268],"tags":[434,18,117,19,17,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-57238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-netflix"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}