Charlie Sheen regreted not taking former CBS boss Les Moonves’ advice and checking into rehab as his life spiralled out of control a decade ago.
Marking the 10th anniversary of his “winning and tiger blood” meltdown following his departure from the hit TV show Two and a Half Men, the actor told Yahoo! Entertainment he’s glad that part of his life is over.
“I was getting loaded and my brain wasn’t working right,” Sheen said.
“There’s a moment when Les Moonves and his top lawyer, Bruce, were at my house and they said, ‘OK, the Warner jet is fuelled up on the runway. Wheels up in an hour and going to rehab, right?'” he recalled.
In his confused state of mind, Sheen refused the offer of help.
“My first thought was sort of like… ‘Oh, d**n, I finally get the Warner jet!’ That’s all I heard,” he shared.
Admitting if he “could go back in time to that moment, I would’ve gotten on the jet” the star acknowledged his unwillingness to go to rehab “led to, you know, a very unfortunate sequence of public and insane events”.
During his meltdown, Charlie posted regular online videos during which he rambled about how great his life was, suggesting ‘tiger blood’ was surging through his veins. He also staged a series of sold-out, bizarre one-man shows at Radio City Music Hall in New York.
Sheen was fired from Two and a Half Men in March 2011 and replaced in the series by Ashton Kutcher.
“There was 55 different ways for me to handle that situation, and I chose number 56 (sic),” he added, reflecting: “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. (It was) desperately juvenile.”