According to his co-star Jon Cryer, Charlie Sheen comported himself like a professional when he came on set during the first few seasons of Two and a Half Men: He was on time and always hit his marks despite partying all night. That feeling of respect would quickly deteriorate. In his memoir, So That Happened, published April 7, Cryer watches as Sheen eventually devolved into the publicly disgraced menace we know him as. The book isn’t a damning account, by any means (especially considering what Sheen has actually done), but Cryer relays some strange anecdotes ranging from the slightly endearing (Sheen was nervous at table-reads) to the more disturbing (he was watching Mary Poppins on Broadway the night he locked a naked escort in the closet at the Plaza Hotel). Here are the weirdest and Charlie Sheen–iest moments from Jon Cryer’s book:
1. Cryer got to meet porn star Ginger Lynn because of Sheen.
Cryer first met Sheen on the set of Hot Shots! (1991), a spoof of Top Gun. “Charlie was hitting clubs and strip joints almost nightly,” writes Cryer. “But his extracurricular fun never seemed to affect his work.” Instead, he “got everything on the first take.” At the time, Sheen was dating Ginger Lynn, a legend in the adult-film industry whom Cryer remembers as “a figure of some eminence in fantastical imaginings of mine inspired by filmic works typically found on store shelves shielded by a flimsy curtain.” Sure, is that how we’re describing a porn star?
2. Sheen asked Cryer to hide his porn stash.
While they were shooting the first season of Two and a Half Men, a panicky Sheen knocked on Cryer’s trailer asking him if he could hide his porn stash for him. Sheen was a newlywed to Denise Richards at the time, and she was making a visit to his trailer. The said stash was apparently a stack of topless magazines, which Cryer — and, frankly, we — found surprisingly tame.
3. Sheen was most nervous during table-reads.
Cryer was especially impressed by how Sheen could party all night, and that his “extracurricular fun never seemed to affect his work.” In Cryer’s most endearing memory, Sheen became the most nervous when they just had to do table-reads, because he used to have a stutter as a kid. Cryer remembers Sheen the first few seasons of Two and a Half Men as a “great, friendly, witty colleague.”
4. Sheen would show him pictures of vaginas.
Denise Richards filed for divorce from Sheen in 2005, during Two and a Half Men’s sophomore season. Cryer was fresh off of a divorce himself from actress Sarah Trigger, and they both found themselves single at the same time. Cryer would see Sheen smoking outside of his trailer in the mornings, and part of his small talk would be Sheen telling him things were going well “romantically” for him, and then proceeding to show him pictures of vaginas he had taken as some sort of visual evidence. Cryer would be flummoxed, but said that the photos were “always [of] a perfectly nice-looking vagina.”
5. One of the first women Cryer dated after his divorce also dated Sheen.
After his divorce from Trigger in 2004, Cryer started dating a woman he met through his trainer, Rich. Cryer brought her to set, where they ran into Sheen, who looked at her “blankly” until she told him that they had met while she was a waitress at La Moustache. Sheen later told Cryer that they used to date for a few months, which prompted Cryer to break up with her.
6. Charlie Sheen takes awards shows personally.
“You don’t understand. It’s all about exclusion, and inclusion.”
7. Martin Sheen kept it real in a wedding toast.
At Sheen’s third wedding, to socialite turned realtor Brooke Mueller, his dad Martin Sheen said to the assembled guests, “Hope you kids know what you’re doing,” before sitting back down. The Sheen-Mueller union only lasted slightly longer than the toast.
8. Sheen was looking rough at the start of the eighth season.
At the start of the eighth season, Cryer writes that Sheen “didn’t look so good.” He was “gaunt, pale, sallow, even sweaty occasionally,” talked to himself, and his timing was off. He would miss rehearsals, and when he did come to set, he would try to seem extra-sober. Cryer writes, “I’d spend my time trying to decide which was more disturbing: Sheen loaded or Sheen “sober.” That would be Sheen’s last season.
9. Charlie Sheen’s texts sound exactly how you think they might.
After Sheen got arrested in Aspen for spousal battery, he texted Cryer:
Thanks bro. Yikes—fukk me, wut a bad day….I’m flying home tonite. I’ll try to call over the weekend. Shower rape was bad but the food was okay. Hair and makeup for mug shot got there too late….
He followed that up with:
And I had same bail bondsman as Kobe…No joke…:)
After the incident where he trashed the New York Plaza Hotel and locked a naked escort in the closet, he wrote:
Shoulda stayed for the whole Poppins show…Oops…:)
(Sheen was watching Mary Poppins on Broadway with his kids before they left early and he met the escort.)
Sheen continued ranting about Chuck Lorre in texts to Cryer, calling him a “cancer that needs to be punished.” He ended his “screed” with:
hatred is fuel.
fuel is god….
or is it; dog…?
hmmm….
Hmm, indeed.
