#WINNING?: The Unprecedented Meltdown Of Charlie Sheen
I’m sure this past week has been a busy one for all of us.
Maybe you were preoccupied with a preponderance of school work. Or perhaps it was that boring, borderline dehumanizing 9-to-5 that got you down. Or maybe you were meeting regularly with your overpriced legal team, striving desperately to devise a legal strategy that’ll keep you out of jail for stealing a necklace for which you had more than enough money to pay (if your name is Lindsay Lohan).
Me? I spent most of this past week trying to figure out what in the hell is going on in the mind of Charlie Sheen. And I’m ashamed to admit that it’s been pretty amazing.
As an out and proud pop culture junkie, it was shocking to realize that I had never seen a celebrity meltdown quite like this one. The initial storyline here was fairly run-of-the-mill. Sheen has spent the past year involving himself in one shady, drug-fueled scandal after another, culminating in a shocking interview on half-baked conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ radio show, where he unleashed a verbal beatdown on Chuck Lorre…his boss. CBS responded by shutting down production on Sheen’s hit show Two and a Half Men, at the height of its success. For most celebs, this means it’s time for rehab.
Not Charlie Sheen. In fact, Charlie had just left rehab (at least a full month earlier than he’d promised CBS) prior to this now legendary interview. And instead of laying low after such a decidedly embarrassing turn of events, Charlie decided that he was, is, and will continue to win this war with his network, and went rogue on them bitches.
I can’t even count the number of interviews Charlie has done since CBS’s bombshell of an announcement. And every interview is a mixture of batshit craziness, blindly self-assured defiance, and some of the cleverest, most hilarious little witticisms I have ever heard. His “work” over the past week is impossible to adequately sum up, but I’ll try. The highest paid actor on TV prior to CBS’s fateful decision, Sheen has demanded both his job back and a doubling of his massive salary, and he plans to sue CBS and Warner Bros. for a whopping $320 million. He unapologetically confessed to 20/20 that his partying makes The Rat Pack and The Rolling Stones look like “droopy-eyed, armless children.” He introduced the world to his current living situation; a polyamorous relationship with two porn star chicks, whom he calls his “goddesses.” He claims that he’s currently “bi-winning” (as opposed to bipolar), imbued with “Adonis DNA,” and has “tiger blood” running through his veins.
But what’s even more stunning and unprecedented is how entertaining and – dare I say it – inspiring the American public has found Sheen’s antics to be. In a move that was both inevitable and genius, Charlie finally launched his own Twitter page two days ago. He garnered over a million followers in 24 hours (which is apparently a World Record). The man has blown Twitter to smithereens; there are probably thousands of people hashtagging #winning and #tigerblood right now. Natasha Leggero tweeted “Charlie Sheen is our Egypt.” And Sheen himself is clearly on his way to becoming one of the greatest twitterers of all time. Case in point; Charlie tweeted this last night: “the title of my book has finally been delivered thru vast and extensive Lunar channels. “Apocalypse Me” Warlock Latin for WINNING. c.”
Obviously, it’s hard to say where this is going. He’s somehow come out of this ordeal more (in)famous than he has ever been, with multiple career paths to choose from (How epic would a Charlie Sheen reality show be?), and he seems entirely committed to what he’s doing right now. But the risks here are very, very real. Although he has reportedly taken multiple drug tests over the past week and passed all of them, Sheen clearly has a substance abuse problem that needs proper attention. And he’s also the father of five children that are probably better off with a more stable parent than the one they’ve got right now.
The obvious question: Is Charlie Sheen #WINNING?
The real question: Should we really be cheering him on?