{"id":214148,"date":"2025-09-10T00:19:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T00:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/214148\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T00:19:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T00:19:13","slug":"book-of-sheen-key-parts-of-charlie-sheens-explosive-memoir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/214148\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Book of Sheen’: Key parts of Charlie Sheen’s explosive memoir"},"content":{"rendered":"

A young Charlie Sheen<\/a> once had Hollywood in his pocket, starring in culture-shaping films like \u201cWall Street\u201d and \u201cPlatoon\u201d before eventually becoming the highest-paid actor in television.<\/p>\n

But underneath the glory laid decades of drug abuse, seven worried family interventions, innumerable drug-fueled escapades and countless affairs. The actor\u2019s tumultuous journey toward sobriety is unabashedly laid out in Sheen\u2019s tell-all memoir, \u201cThe Book of Sheen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 359-page book was released by Gallery Books Tuesday. It reveals the story behind Sheen\u2019s rise, fall and eventual sobriety in 2017.<\/p>\n

Here are some details about \u201cBook of Sheen.\u201d<\/p>\n

What does Charlie Sheen\u2019s book cover?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Book of Sheen\u201d begins when Sheen\u2019s life does, recounting his near-death experience during birth and meticulously narrates his wild journey through Hollywood, time he spent running from rehabilitation centers, partying with celebrities and three divorces.<\/p>\n

Sheen was raised in a family full of actors. His father, Martin Sheen, found success in the \u201970s, starring in the crime drama \u201cBadlands\u201d and \u201cApocalypse Now.\u201d<\/p>\n

He spent his childhood creating fiction films on a Super 8 film camera with his older brothers, Emilio and Ramon, he describes in the book.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were trying our best to mimic Dad\u2019s profession: making the fake stuff seem real, while doing so fearlessly,\u201d Sheen wrote.<\/p>\n

How did Sheen become famous?<\/p>\n

Sheen, 60, born as Carlos Irwin Est\u00e9vez to Martin Sheen and Janet Templeton, was exposed to the acting world early, having grown up on his father\u2019s film sets.<\/p>\n

The budding actor eventually took on the stage name of Charlie Sheen, following his father, who made a similar change. He landed his first major acting role in the 1986 Vietnam War drama<\/a>, \u201cPlatoon\u201d and starred in the crime drama \u201cWall Street\u201d alongside his father and Michael Douglas the following year.<\/p>\n

The actor eventually found success in television, with a starring role in the popular CBS sitcom \u201cTwo and a Half Men.\u201d It made him the highest-paid male actor on television, reportedly earning $1.8 million per episode during the show\u2019s eighth season.<\/p>\n

Sheen is widely known for his tumultuous professional and personal life. He spent the \u201980s and \u201990s addicted to alcohol and hard drugs, with explosive divorces, an HIV diagnosis<\/a> and assault allegations<\/a> dominating the tabloids.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo and a Half Men\u201d was forced into a hiatus in 2011 when Sheen underwent his third rehab attempt. That season was eventually canceled and Sheen\u2019s contract was terminated after he made offensive public statements toward creator Chuck Lorre. <\/p>\n

Sheen maintained a relatively low public profile after his decision to become sober in late 2017. <\/p>\n

Sheen\u2019s early years of fame<\/p>\n

As the child and brother of movie stars, Sheen has had famous friends and acquaintances for much of his life, from Sean Penn and Rob Lowe to George Clooney and Laura Dern. <\/p>\n

By his mid-20s, he had partied with Madonna and Jack Nicholson \u2014 on the same night \u2014 played basketball with Michael Jordan, met Bill Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas and talked baseball with Reggie Jackson while both were guests at Hugh Hefner\u2019s Playboy Mansion. <\/p>\n

\u201cPlatoon\u201d made him a star and changed his life, no wish or desire left unmet.<\/p>\n

He learned to live hard early on, drinking and snorting cocaine in high school and conceiving his first child at 18. Around the time he filmed \u201cThe Rookie,\u201d which came out in 1990, loved ones staged the first of what he writes have been seven interventions. Among those urging him to clean up: Lowe, brother Emilio and father Martin, one of his junior high school teachers, a yoga master and the star and director of \u201cThe Rookie,\u201d Clint Eastwood, who by telephone told him: \u201cYou got this, just a minor speed bump, go make me proud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sheen ushered in the \u201890s by assembling what he called The Jackson 5, a group of men that included Nicolas Cage. He describes in detail the drug-filled adventures they went on as they \u201ctested the ceiling of stardom against the reach of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Jackson 5 landed him in rehab for the first time and he left a new man, that is, until a chance encounter with a Foster\u2019s Lager at Cage\u2019s house exactly a year later, which is when he first broke his sobriety.<\/p>\n

Sheen\u2019s drug abuse<\/p>\n

Sheen was first introduced to crack cocaine in 1992 by a girlfriend, an experience that he wrote \u201crewired my frontal cortex.\u201d He knew then the drug could ruin his life, and vowed to never touch it again \u2014 a promise he kept until he began regularly using in 1996. He tried what he referred to as \u201cdope\u201d about a year after, given to him by a registered nurse he met at a party.<\/p>\n

His drug use \u201ccomes down to choices \u2026 I didn\u2019t wake up with a needle sticking out of my arm, I made the decision to put it there,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

The drug use impacted his acting roles. Sheen was almost fired from the 1997 action comedy \u201cMoney Talks\u201d after \u201ca thirty-two-hour cocaine nosebleed\u201d halted filming. His addiction to pills became too much to manage while on the set of \u201cTwo and Half Men,\u201d as he describes being in \u201cfull withdrawal\u201d by the middle of tapings.<\/p>\n

Sheen cycled in and out of his sobriety for decades, including numerous rehab stays that he managed to escape almost every time.<\/p>\n

In 1999, he celebrated his first year of sobriety while filming \u201cRated X.\u201d But, he writes that he picked up crack cocaine, along with alcohol and prescription pills, once again while in a relationship with Brooke Mueller, who he married in 2008. Their subsequent split in 2011, coupled with the infamous \u201c20\/20″ interview he did that same year, which led to his firing from \u201cTwo and a Half Men,\u201d pushed him further into his substance abuse.<\/p>\n

After announcing his HIV diagnosis to the world on the \u201cToday\u201d show in 2015, Sheen quit hard drugs, he wrote, but the alcohol was harder to shake. The drinking, he thought at the time, was \u201ca friend for life to help me navigate the potholes and landmines the future had in store.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, it was a car ride to an appointment for his daughter, Sam, who was 13 at the time, that sealed his long-term sobriety in December 2017. He had been drinking that morning and unable to drive. \u201cThere was only one thing that felt worse than betraying myself, and that was failing my children,\u201d Sheen wrote.<\/p>\n

Sheen and Heidi Fleiss<\/p>\n

Half way through the book, Sheen describes first meeting Heidi Fleiss<\/a>, most famously known as \u201cThe Hollywood Madam,\u201d at a club in 1992. He described the intoxicating rush of hiring call girls, knowing there\u2019s an \u201coutside chance of opening the door to handcuffs instead of girls.\u201d <\/p>\n

Fleiss was later arrested in 1993, and Sheen, who\u2019d written various checks to her in return for sexual encounters with women, \u201ccut a deal for immunity.\u201d In return, he provided a recorded testimony against Fleiss, who ultimately served 20 months at federal prison in California. <\/p>\n

He describes in the book a sense of embarrassment for testifying against Fleiss, which was motivated by a fear of a pandering charge, which could\u2019ve resulted in five years in jail. If he could go back, he wrote, \u201cno chance I\u2019d play ball like I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sheen\u2019s marriages and divorces<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Book of Sheen\u201d describes in detail what led to Sheen\u2019s three marriages and divorces. <\/p>\n

Just before the Fleiss fallout, Sheen embarked on a whirlwind romance with Donna Peele, his first wife, which quickly turned sour soon after their marriage in 1995. He made a drunken spectacle at the wedding, got drunk during the flight home from the honeymoon \u2014 during which the pilot let him fly the plane for about 90 seconds \u2014 and threw their wedding rings out of a sunroof during an explosive fight. \u201cI blame myself for most of our dustups, with booze being the easiest culprit to pin it on,\u201d he wrote. \u201cOur situation needed a villain to blame.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sheen met his second wife, Denise Richards<\/a>, on a film set in the early 2000s and reconnected shortly after, when she guest starred on \u201cSpin City.\u201d<\/a> The pair dated for about two months before he proposed, which he said was spurred by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and his three-and-a-half year sobriety. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time in years,\u201d he wrote, \u201cmy feelings were accessible and based in reality.\u201d Right around the time Sheen was cast on \u201cTwo and a Half Men,\u201d Richards had given birth to their daughter, Sam, and their home life was crumbling. Sheen turned to prescription pills and the two divorced shortly after their second daughter was born.<\/p>\n

Sheen gave up pills for a while after his second divorce. He met Mueller shortly after, and the two got married a year later. He attributed the quickness to \u201cfeeling so overwhelmed, beat down, and outnumbered in my life.\u201d The couple had twin boys in 2009 and he began using pills again shortly after that. Mueller, who was also sober when they met, began taking them as well, which eventually led to them both using hard drugs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe split from B left me numb, both in spirit and from the amount of booze and dope I showered my brain with to quell the debilitating frustrations,\u201d Sheen wrote. Today, he described his relationship with Richards as \u201csolid,\u201d and with Mueller as \u201csustainable.\u201d <\/p>\n

What does Sheen say about the book?<\/p>\n

The first line of his book had occurred to Sheen years before he actually sat down to write the memoir, he said during a conversation Monday with actor and writer David Duchovny<\/a> during an event at 92nd Street Y, New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn September 3rd, 1965 in New York City at 10:58 p.m. I was born dead,\u201d the actor recited from memory on stage. That near-death experience right at birth, caused by an umbilical strangulation, set the tone for much of the rest of his life, Sheen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople always say you got more lives than a cat, right, and they come in at nine or something,\u201d Sheen said. \u201cSo I already got \u2014 We\u2019re already at eight, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

The book was released eight years after he got sober, time that he said gave them the distance necessary to reflect on his life experiences. <\/p>\n

\u201cI needed this much distance between that other life, those other versions of me,\u201d Sheen said. \u201cI don\u2019t think that I could\u2019ve committed to this and delivered the type of focus and passion and discipline that it required unless I also had the distance.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP National Writer Hillel Italie contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A young Charlie Sheen once had Hollywood in his pocket, starring in culture-shaping films like \u201cWall Street\u201d and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":214149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[37694,1022,117129,276,117125,1028,65200,15799,44155,36304,168,117128,171,57,13615,210,76528,117127,32734,117126,32747,24991,117124,32654,4255,53,101797,17661,45131,34616,61,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-214148","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-addiction-and-treatment","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-brooke-mueller","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-carlos-irwin-estvez","13":"tag-charlie-sheen","14":"tag-chuck-lorre","15":"tag-clint-eastwood","16":"tag-david-duchovny","17":"tag-denise-richards","18":"tag-domestic-news","19":"tag-donna-peele","20":"tag-entertainment","21":"tag-general-news","22":"tag-george-clooney","23":"tag-health","24":"tag-heidi-fleiss","25":"tag-hugh-hefner","26":"tag-jack-nicholson","27":"tag-janet-templeton","28":"tag-laura-dern","29":"tag-madonna","30":"tag-martin-sheen","31":"tag-michael-douglas","32":"tag-michael-jordan","33":"tag-movies","34":"tag-nicolas-cage","35":"tag-reggie-jackson","36":"tag-rob-lowe","37":"tag-sean-penn","38":"tag-u-s-news","39":"tag-united-states","40":"tag-unitedstates","41":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}