Charlie Sheen and Chuck Lorre faced a series of ups and downs after the actor’s substance abuse issues began affecting his work on Two and a Half Men.
Sheen portrayed Charlie Harper on the CBS series from 2003 to 2011, when he was fired after making a series of controversial statements about Lorre, the show’s cocreator.
The Anger Management alum‘s character was killed off the show at the beginning of season 9 in fall 2011. Ashton Kutcher joined the cast to act alongside original star Jon Cryer until the series wrapped in 2015.
Before the sitcom came to an end, Sheen told TV Guide that he was ready to make amends with Lorre. “He was doing his job, I was doing mine. At the end of the day, the guy’s a genius. Look at what he does,” he said. “I don’t have to spend time with him anymore for him to be brilliant.”
January 2011
Two and a Half Men began a hiatus and halted production after Sheen was ordered to go to rehab to deal with his drug and alcohol struggles. The Ferris Bueller’s Day Off actor opted to do at-home treatment, later calling his house “Sober Valley Lodge.”
One month later, Sheen raised eyebrows for criticizing Lorre during multiple interviews. The New York native called the Mike & Molly creator a “clown” during an appearance on the Alex Jones Show. “I’ve spent, I think, at close to the last decade, I don’t know, effortlessly and magically converting your tin cans into pure gold,” he added.
March 2011
Sheen filed a $100 million lawsuit against Lorre and Warner Bros. Television after being fired from the series. His filing was made in an attempt to receive compensation for the canceled season 8 episodes that resulted from the show’s hiatus.
The case was settled in September 2011 with TMZ reporting that the Spin City alum would receive an immediate payout of $25 million, which would eventually become $100 million in syndication profits for years to come.
“Warner Bros. Television, Chuck Lorre and Charlie Sheen have resolved their dispute to the parties’ mutual satisfaction,” read a statement from the studio at the time. “The pending lawsuit and arbitration will be dismissed as to all parties. The parties have agreed to maintain confidentiality over the terms of the settlement.”
September 2011
When season 9 of Two and a Half Men premiered, Charlie Harper was seemingly killed off. Kutcher then joined the cast as Walden Schmidt. When the series came to an end in February 2015, Sheen’s character was revived by a body double — but he was later crushed by a falling piano.
December 2011
Lorre opened up about his fears for Sheen during an interview with TV Guide. “I was so afraid my friend was going to die,” the showrunner said, referring to the star’s drug use at the time of his firing. “The [studio and the network] chose to make a moral decision as opposed to a financial one. This was not a game. This was drug addiction writ large.”
September 2014
Sheen told TV Guide that he was interested in returning to Two and a Half Men ahead of its final season. “I’ve reached out to them and they’ve reached back,” he claimed.
While the Money Talks star was willing to go back to set, he noted that he wasn’t exactly on good terms with Lorre. “Ethereally we have, personally we have not,” Sheen said of whether he made peace with the producer, adding, “I wish him nothing but the best.”
January 2015
Lorre played coy about Sheen making a cameo on the comedy’s finale — and insisted there was no beef between the pair. “I think we’re going to have a finale you’re going to be very pleased with and that’s all I’m going to say about it,” the show’s creator teased to reporters at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour.
He later circled back to the Three Musketeers actor’s part on the sitcom, saying, “It would be inappropriate to not acknowledge the extraordinary success we had with Charlie and how grateful I am, we all are, to his contributions. And there’s nothing but great feelings for the eight-and-a-half years we worked together.”
January 2017
The She Wants Me star confessed during an appearance on the Kyle & Jackie O show that he regretted how he treated Kutcher when he joined the Two and a Half Men cast. “I was stupidly mean to him because I overlooked the reality and difficulty of taking over a show,” Sheen told the radio hosts. “Which I did, I took over Spin City when Michael J. Fox was too sick to work, but no one ever put those two together. … So I should have been nicer.”
The Due Date actor slammed the That ‘70s Show alum via social media multiple times in the years after he joined the sitcom in 2011. In 2014, he tweeted that Kutcher was Cryer’s “lame sidekick.”
Sheen explained in January 2017 that he buried the hatchet with his fill-in while at a Dodgers game the previous November. “It was awkward, but I made it fine because I felt bad for him,” he recalled. “He thought he was going to catch a right cross, but I just wanted to give him a hug.”
