Watch Charlie’s Today interview in the video below.
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“It hit her hard, but she recovered”, Sheen told Matt Lauer. A number of people who found out, he said, forced him to pay them to keep quiet about his condition.
“I can only imagine based on what I’ve already experienced and what’s come down the pike”, Sheen said, revealing he’s been blackmailed for up to $10 million by those who had wished to prematurely disclose his HIV status publicly.
His doctor Robert Huizenga joined Sheen on the program, testifying the actor has been taking strong anti-viral drugs and has an undetectable level of the virus in his blood. Sheen said that his meltdown was not entirely related to the HIV diagnosis, instead referring to it as a “roid rage”. He admits that he has had unprotected sex since his diagnosis, but that the two people involved were forewarned, and that he has told all his sexual partners about his status.
“I trusted them and they were deep in my inner circle, and I thought they could be helpful”.
Valenti said it’s not uncommon for an HIV patient to live nearly as long as a health person, if they take their medications as prescribed.
He also revealed that on an unspecified date, a prostitute he had sex with at home took photos of the medications he was taking and used them to become another of his blackmailers. Here’s what the actor had to say when first admitting that he had contracted the virus, when asked why he was making a statement this morning.
Sheen adds, “Perhaps the freedom of today might lead to that as well”.
About 1.2 million people in the US, and 35 million people globally are estimated to be living with HIV.
Sheen, who has been divorced three times, played the womanizing bachelor Charlie Harper on top-rated comedy “Two and A Half Men” for eight years before being fired in 2011 for bad behavior that included cocaine-fueled partying with porn stars and a conviction for assaulting his ex-wife.
Charlie said he hoped the interview will put an end to all of the payouts and also dispel myths and stigmas about HIV.
“We’re petrified about Charlie”, Huizenga said bluntly.
He said: “If there was one guy on this planet to contract this, that’s going to deliver a cure, it’s me”. But he’s not paying anybody any more, he says, “Not after today, I’m not”. He went on to star in the now-cancelled Anger Management, and does not appear to have any current film or television projects in the works.
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“Hopefully, with what we are doing today, others may come forward and say, ‘Thanks, Charlie, for kicking the door open, ‘” Sheen said.
