The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Confirmed: Charlie Sheen Has HIV

Posted on | November 17, 2015 | 63 Comments

 

It was Regular Right Guy who tipped me to the rumor two weeks ago that Charlie Sheen has the AIDS virus, and I wrote:

The recklessness of Sheen’s life — cocaine and whores — was bound to catch up with him sooner or later, and if he is indeed infected with HIV, this would not be particularly surprising.

Tragic, but not surprising. The news this week:

Charlie Sheen is expected to disclose that he is HIV positive in an exclusive “Today” Show interview on Tuesday, a source with direct knowledge of the interview told CNNMoney.
On Monday, NBC announced that the actor would be making a “revealing personal announcement” on the “Today” show Tuesday morning.
The source told CNNMoney that Sheen is expected to discuss his HIV condition when he sits down with Matt Lauer live from the “Today” show studio in New York City.
In addition, Hollywood public relations specialist Howard Bragman was quoted in People Magazine saying that Sheen “is getting treatment, and a lot of people in his life know about it.”

So, Regular Right Guy is right again. Always trust your blog buddies. Sources say Sheen’s ex-wife had known he was infected:

As Charlie Sheen gets ready to announce to the world that he is HIV positive, a source tells Access Hollywood that Sheen’s ex-wife, Denise Richards, has known Sheen had the disease for a “number of years.”
A source close to Richards told Access Hollywood that the actor contracted the disease in the years after he and Richards divorced in 2006.
Sheen and Richards have “not been intimate” since the divorce, the source added.
Sheen and Richards first met in 2000, but didn’t begin dating until October 2001, when Richards appeared on Sheen’s sitcom “Spin City.” The couple got engaged on December 26, 2001 and tied the knot on June 15, 2002.
In March 2005, Richards filed for divorce. The divorce was finalized in November 2006.

To me, that’s the real kick in the head of this story. By the time he met Denise Richards, Charlie Sheen had spent enough years as Hollywood’s roguish bad boy that you might have thought he would be more than happy to hang up his spurs and retire from the rodeo.

 

And what a fairly tale ending that would have been, eh? The notorious womanizer finally settling down to family life, married to one of the most beautiful young actresses on the planet. But it wasn’t enough for Charlie. His oversized ego, and the bad habits he acquired as a young prince of Hollywood, could not adapt to the constraints of domestic tranquility. He wrecked his marriage and ruined his career and, somewhere in this celebrity tragedy, there may be a lesson worth studying.

Money won’t buy happiness, and it won’t buy silence, either:

Charlie Sheen kept his HIV status under wraps, but everything unraveled when some former partners threatened him with lawsuits . . .
Charlie confided in several friends he thought were confidants … it turned out they weren’t, and spread the word he was HIV positive.
That led to several of Charlie’s former partners contacting him and threatening a lawsuit because they were unaware of his status when they had interaction with him. Our sources say Charlie settled several of the cases and, in return for money, got confidentiality agreements.
We’re told one of the settlements occurred late last month.

 

Category: Celebrities

Comments

63 Responses to “Confirmed: Charlie Sheen Has HIV”

  1. JosephBleau
    November 17th, 2015 @ 1:05 pm

    He obviously got his transfusion before they knew enough to test Tiger’s Blood for HIV.

  2. Dana
    November 17th, 2015 @ 1:57 pm

    With no penance assigned?

  3. Steve in Greensboro
    November 17th, 2015 @ 3:35 pm

    I used the phrase “common sense” in a conversation with an older black limo driver on the way to LGA a few years back. He called me on it. He said there is no such thing.

    In his view, the proper expression was “mother wit”. Some have it, but some don’t. It is not common.

  4. Quartermaster
    November 17th, 2015 @ 3:35 pm

    No. He was begging for it. While Hetero transmission isn’t all that common in the US, it’s still playing Russian Roulette when you engage in playing drugs and sexual incontinence.

  5. Quartermaster
    November 17th, 2015 @ 3:38 pm

    Common sense is a better expression. Einstein said it was the accumulation of prejudices since adolescence. It didn’t help that Einstein had no common sense as he was probably an Aspie. But, he is right in one sense in that it amounts to the practical learning one acquires as one grows and matures. Sheen, obviously, needed to learn from his own mistakes. As Ol’ ben Franklin put it “nature runs a dear school.” If Sheen hasn’t seen that yet, he will.

  6. Tonestaple
    November 17th, 2015 @ 3:52 pm

    This is not “tragic.” Getting infected with HIV nowadays is almost always a self-inflicted wound and there is no grace or virtue to it. If you choose to have unprotected sex with icky people, you are asking for it. Charlie Sheen was, as you noted, asking for it.
    I remember an episode of Project Runway where one of the contestants made some (really well-made) pants out of a print fabric that looked like a plus sign. In his runway interview, he said the outfit was personally meaningful to him and the judges finally coaxed him to say what he had obviously intended to say all along, that he was HIV positive. The judges sat there saying how honored they were that he told them this, and I was sitting there thinking, “You dumb piece of crap….”

  7. Daniel Freeman
    November 17th, 2015 @ 4:26 pm

    And Hugh Grant cheated on Elizabeth Hurley.

  8. DeadMessenger
    November 17th, 2015 @ 4:29 pm

    Screw political correctness. I’ll go with reality.

    And the reality is that women are subordinate to men – in their roles as wives and mothers. But they are equal as human beings. This is the natural order.

    But then, when women enter the work force, confusion results among both genders, due to this natural subordination paradigm. Most women simply don’t know, for instance, how to lead men on the job. They falsely believe they can lead men and women the same way.

    I, for one, really dislike working for women and greatly prefer having a man for a boss.

  9. DeadMessenger
    November 17th, 2015 @ 4:34 pm

    He’s very courageous. And a hero.

  10. M. Thompson
    November 17th, 2015 @ 8:16 pm

    “The wages of sin are death…” seems about right on this one.

  11. Joe Guelph
    November 17th, 2015 @ 8:24 pm

    /resists urge to quote from “The Gods of the Copybook Headings”…..

  12. M. Thompson
    November 17th, 2015 @ 8:54 pm

    No, I’m good with Kipling. Not sure how Mr. McCain is though.

  13. Charles G. Hill
    November 17th, 2015 @ 10:32 pm

    I’m not sure he’s ever Kipled.