Ten years ago, Charlie Sheen was "#winning." Only not really.
In March 2011, the highest-paid actor on TV was famously fired from his CBS comedy series Two and a Half Men after he publicly insulted its creator Chuck Lorre and went on a series of now-famous profanity laced rants. Nowadays, he calls it a juvenile meltdown.
"People have [said to] me, 'Hey, man, that was so cool, that was so fun to watch. That was so cool to be a part of and support and all that energy and, you know, we stuck it to the man," Sheen told Yahoo! Entertainment in comments posted on Thursday, Feb. 25. "My thought behind that is, 'Oh, yeah, great. I'm so glad that I traded early retirement for a f--king hashtag.'"
The outlet said Sheen has regrets about his behavior. "There was 55 different ways for me to handle that situation, and I chose number 56. And so, you know, I think the growth for me post-meltdown or melt forward or melt somewhere — however you want to label it — it has to start with absolute ownership of my role in all of it," he said. "And it was desperately juvenile."
In January 2011, filming on Two and a Half Men was suspended temporarily after the actor began undergoing treatment for drug addiction following a relapse. By late February, production was shut down for the whole season after Sheen called co-creator Lorre a "turd" and a "clown" and used an anti-Semitic term while referring to his name in an interview with controversial conservative syndicated radio host Alex Jones.
The actor then went on series of profanity laced rants on a newly created Twitter account and in a short-lived Ustream.tv live stream show called Sheen's Korner that he recorded at home, or his "Sober Valley Lodge." He also gave candid TV interviews. In his first-ever tweet, posted on March 1, 2011, Sheen wrote, "Winning..! Choose your Vice... #winning #chooseyourvice." He would go on to use the catchphrase "winning!" repeatedly during his week-long media spree.
Days later, he was officially fired from Two and a Half Men. Production company Warner Bros. Television stated in a legal letter to Sheen's lawyer that the actor had "engaged in dangerously self-destructive conduct and appears to be very ill."
"I think it was drugs or the residual effects of drugs," Sheen told Yahoo! Entertainment, "and it was also an ocean of stress and a volcano of disdain."
Sheen, who shares daughters Sam, 16, and Lola, 15, with ex-wife Denise Richards, and 11-year-old twin sons Max and Bob with ex-wife Brooke Mueller, went on to say, "I had four children and went through two divorces in and around trying to navigate the landscape of being on the most popular show in the known universe, so it was a lot."
In his now-famous TV interviews, Sheen was as quotable as he were candid. He spoke to ABC's 20/20 about his past drug addiction, saying, "I was bangin' seven-gram rocks and finishing them because that's how I roll, because I have one speed, one gear...I'm different. I have a different constitution, I have a different brain, I have a different heart. I got tiger blood, man. Dying's for fools, dying's for amateurs."
He also said in the same 20/20 interview, "I am on a drug. It's called Charlie Sheen. If you try it once you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body."
To NBC's Today show, he said, "I'm tired of pretending like I'm not special. I'm tired of pretending like I'm not bitching, a total fricking rock star from Mars, and people can't figure me out, they can't process me. I don't expect them to. You can't process me with a normal brain."
At the time, Sheen also bragged about living with a couple of "goddesses," who were really porn stars, and also said he deserved a pay raise. The actor's last salary was reportedly about $1.8 million per episode—more than any other actor on television.
Following his firing, Sheen continued his acting career and in 2012, he returned to TV with new sitcom, Anger Management. The FX show lasted two seasons. In recent years, Sheen has since made sporadic appearances on shows like the ABC sitcom The Goldbergs and small films. Yahoo! Entertainment said the actor is currently developing a new show, quoting him as saying that people will "celebrate me again for what I actually do for a living."
In 2015, the actor shocked fans when he announced that he is HIV positive. He said on the Today show that he was diagnosed about four years prior.
In 2017, Sheen spoke again about his HIV diagnosis on ABC's Good Morning America, saying he had been enrolled in an FDA study for an experimental HIV drug. He also talked about his 2011 meltdown.
"I was doing way too much testosterone cream," he said. "Trying to keep the old libido up. It metabolizes into basically a 'roid rage. That whole odyssey. That was basically an accidental 'roid rage. But there's some good quotes that came out of it, right? There's a few fun moments. So bizarre, so bizarre, so bizarre."