Two and A Half Men's Jake actor completely unrecognisable a decade after quitting acting in religious 'meltdown'
No matter how successful they might be as a kid, there's no guarantee that child actors will go to become an actor full-time when they grow up.
Over the years, we've seen a number of big names from the silver screen go on to struggle with various issues, whether it be drugs, alcohol or mental health problems.
Often, the child stars from our favourite TV shows are earning far more money than they know what to do with - just look at how much the Stranger Things cast earned over their time on the hit Netflix show.
And Angus T Jones was certainly no different, as he starred as Jake on Two and a Half Men alongside Charlie Sheen, where he was earning between $250,000 and $300,000 an episode at one point – making him the highest paid child star on TV at the time.
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Despite being the 'half' of one of the biggest shows in the world at the time, he decided to quit acting entirely while the filming was still ongoing, following a public religious ‘meltdown’ that saw him leave the show.
During season nine however his character started taking on some more adult storylines, smoking weed and starting to have sex, and Jones couldn’t align it with his Christian conservative views.
He posted a video alongside Christopher Hudson, a Christian preacher known for anti-gay, anti-masturbation, controversial YouTube videos, and spoke about how he had become a ‘Seventh-day Adventist’.
He called Two and a Half Men ‘trash’, urged people not to watch it, and said that any ‘God-fearing Christian’ could not work on the show at the same time. Jones quit the show a couple of seasons later, saying in a local news interview: “I was a paid hypocrite because I wasn't OK with it and I was still doing it.
"It was making light of topics in our world that are really problems for a lot of people.”
In 2016 he revealed that he had left the church, and also apologised to the show’s creator Chuck Lorre, saying: “I just totally insulted his baby and, to that degree, I am apologetic. Otherwise, I don't regret what I said.”
Charlie Sheen joked in a statement to People Magazine that Jones’ meltdown showed that the series was ‘cursed’, having himself been fired after an infamous drugs-fuelled meltdown.
Jones returned in the finale in a cameo appearance but otherwise has been pretty much retired from acting, attending university after he finished up on the show.
He was coaxed out of retirement by Chuck Lorre in 2023 for Bookies, his new show that featured an episode in which Charlie Sheen played himself.
They recreated Two and a Half Men’s episode one poker game, using all the same original actors in the roles, including Jones now joining the table as an adult who looks markedly different.
Interviewed by People in 2016, he said he hoped to one day return to acting, and added that things had become ‘pretty doomsday’, causing him to step back from the religious organisation he was a part of.
This same year he joined ‘TONITE’ a media company launched by Diddy’s son Justin Combs, where he was made President of Entertainment.
Since then, updates on Jones have been sparse, not posting on Instagram since announcing in 2020 that he ‘does music now’.
Topics: Charlie Sheen, TV and Film, TV, Nostalgia
Michael Slavin