Charlie Harper finally got rid of his "damn stalker," Rose. Now Charlie Sheen's taken care of his own Rose-related issues.
Sheen has settled a lawsuit brought by a California woman who accused the actor of using her life as the basis for the zany character on his hit CBS sitcom, Two and a Half Men, court records show.
Ursula Auburn, a onetime acquaintance of Sheen, sued the actor in Los Angeles Superior Court a year ago alleging the character of Rose—the friendly neighborhood nut job who's obsessed with Sheen's playboy alter ego, Charlie Harper—was really a malicious attempt on Sheen's part to diss her.
Sheen's lawyer, Bruce Isaacs, confirmed the two sides reached an accord over the weekend, thus avoiding a potential court showdown.
"Ms. Auburn filed a lawsuit that Charlie thought was devoid of merit and we defended it for a while and were utterly convinced that we would knock the case out on summary judgment," said Isaacs. "But we got an opportunity to settle the case [because] she wanted to make it go away."
Isaacs declined to discuss the specifics of the deal, and there was no official comment from Auburn or her attorney, Edward Kang; however, a source familiar with the case described the settlement as a "paltry sum."
Auburn had sought $1 million in damages from the former Hollywood bad boy for invasion of privacy, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Per court documents, Two and a Half Men's depiction of Rose as a "crazy female with no life except for stalking Harper every day of her life" caused Auburn "humiliation, emotional distress, embarrassment, chagrin, mortification and immeasurable grief."
Auburn, who claimed to have once been romantically involved with Sheen in the mid-90s, pointed to specific plot lines that she said mocked her.
In one example, Auburn cited an episode where Rose launches a Website relating to Charlie Harper's female conquests as mirroring a similar real-life incident in which the plaintiff created a Web page describing her purported affair with Sheen.
Isaacs, however, strongly denied those allegations.
"She was claiming that one of the characters was based on her, and Charlie didn't even create these characters. He's an actor, not one of the writers. He is not one of the creators of the show and when the script was presented to him way back when, this character was already in it," Isaacs said.
Asked about Sheen's relationship with Auburn, Isaacs replied: "He knew her long, long ago in his past. It was for a pretty short period of time."
The character of Rose, played by Melanie Lynskey, made what was billed as her final appearance on the show in February, in an episode titled "My Damn Stalker."
Sheen, 41, is currently TV's highest paid star, and Two and Half Men continues to be the most watched sitcom in prime time, last week averaging nearly 14 million viewers in its regular 9 p.m. Monday time slot.