Insulting Boss, Not Abuse, Gets Sheen Sidelined

From David Carr, The Media Equation, The New York Times:

For eight very successful seasons, Charlie Sheen has been the star of “Two and a Half Men” which is produced by Warner Brothers and which is owned by Time Warner, and broadcast by CBS. Let’s ignore the mountains of cocaine that Mr. Sheen has admitted doing along the way — CBS and Warner Brothers certainly did.

In addition to wreaking all manner of havoc on himself with drugs and alcohol that has put him in the hospital and the show on hiatus, Mr. Sheen has done a lot of damage to the people around him, women in particular.

In 2006, his wife at the time, Denise Richards, filed a restraining order, charging that Mr. Sheen had pushed her down, thrown chairs at her and threatened to kill her in person and on the phone. The couple eventually divorced.

Mr. Sheen then had a series of very public relationships with sex film stars, which is certainly his prerogative — talent is as talent does — but he also continued to exhibit a pattern of violence toward women.

Mr. Sheen was charged with a felony for an incident on Christmas Day in 2009 in which he threatened to kill his wife, Brooke Mueller, while holding a knife to her throat. According to the police report, Mr. Sheen “started to strangle Mueller then he pulled out a knife he always carries on his person and held the knife to Mueller’s neck and threatened, ‘You better be in fear. If you tell anybody I’ll kill you.’ ”

Last fall, Mr. Sheen went on a rampage in the Plaza Hotel in New York. A hired escort who had locked herself in the bathroom claimed he had put his hands around her neck and threatened her while his former wife Ms. Richards and his children slept down the hall.

Yet none of these incidents got Mr. Sheen fired from his lucrative day job as a sitcom star, not even suspended. What did? He insulted his boss.

Read more here.

GERALDO: Charlie Sheen Will Never Work In Television Again

Tom's Take: Sheen might have less leverage than he obviously thinks he does, since the studio does not need to continue to pay him a salary to make money off of his work in 177 episodes already in the can.