Warning: This article contains discussion of drug addiction which some readers may find distressing
Charlie Sheen has opened up on a number of hidden aspects of his life in recent times, including the fact that he slept with men while at the height of his drug addiction.
Just last month, the 60-year-old opened up on almost every aspect of his personal life through the release of his memoir, The Book of Sheen, and a Netflix docuseries titled aka Charlie Sheen, one day after another in early September.
Among the star's numerous admissions, he revealed that he never did heroin, even at the height of his addiction, describing it as a ' do it once and die or do it once and then need to do it every day for a long time until I died'.
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But one of Sheen's more noteworthy admissions was to do with him sleeping with men and feeling the need to hide it.
He admitted on daytime TV show Good Morning America that hiding the fact he'd sleep with men came 'with a tremendous amount of extortion', as he explained that he paid good amounts of money 'to keep it quiet'.
“They had videoed things or whatever, or had stuff over me,” Sheen admitted, saying he needed 'to be free' from that.
The actor has now spoken more about this aspect of his past in a new interview with The Times, in which he was asked why he chose to speak about it now.
“The director of the doc said, 'I’ve done a deep-dive on your life and there are a ton of rumours about you and dudes'. I’m like, 'Fine, let’s talk about it'. It seemed like the right time,” he admitted.
Sheen went on: "I’ve experienced what it’s like to keep that stuff hidden, and always worry about the next phone call, the next knock on the door.
"But I didn’t have any experience with, 'What if it was out there?'"
The former Two and a Half Men star joked: "It gave me something else in common with Richard Pryor and Marlon Brando. That’s pretty good company, right?"
Sheen was reportedly the highest-paid TV actor in the world while he was on the sitcom, earning around $1.8 million (£1.2 million) per episode, though a dispute over salary and a falling out with creator Chuck Lorre would get him booted off the show and replaced with Ashton Kutcher.
He has now been sober and celibate for a decade, and is at peace with his past enough to open up on several topics, including the time he contracted HIV.
Once again, he paid hush money, claiming: “I had to tell people in private. Then they would extort me with that information - take photos of my (HIV) meds while I was asleep.
"They would do all kinds of nefarious s**t."
Sheen claimed he'd paid someone $1.4 million to keep the diagnosis to themselves, paying millions across the board as he admitted: "I was locked in a fear prison. It was a room with no doors."
He compared the admission with news that he was having sex with men, claiming they 'have the same value' after coming clean on his HIV diagnosis in 2015.
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Topics: Charlie Sheen, Netflix, Celebrity, Drugs
Joshua Nair