Ten years ago, when youth still burned in our eyes, Charlie Sheen was winning. He was banging seven gram rocks and finishing them, because that’s how he rolls. He has one speed, one gear: “Go!” He’s on a drug called “Charlie Sheen.” It’s not available. If you try it once you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body.
Now, a decade later, Charlie Sheen regrets not quitting drugs in 2011 and getting fired from Two and a Half Men, where he was the highest paid TV actor in history, making $2 million an episode. He says he’d prefer to have given up drugs and kept working for the show so he could retire early.
But I just can’t wrap my head around that.
Sheen was in 177 episodes, so even assuming he made half that in the early episodes that’s still a minimum of $177 million. For the sake of convenience let’s round it up to $200 million and say he had to pay 33% in taxes. That would leave him with $134 million. He had a $6.6 million house in California, let’s say he pays $500,000 in taxes and another $500,000 in utilities and other expenses every year, and another $1 million on everything else. At the height of his drug binges he was also allegedly consuming $5,000 in cocaine a day, which adds up to about $1.8 million over 10 years.
This leaves Sheen with $105.6 million after 10 years. Assuming the worst that his wife, who he divorced in 2011, took half his money, that would still leave Sheen with $52.8 million.
Either he found one hell of a fast way to blow money that I can’t think of, or Charlie Sheen (who is 55 years old) has enough money saved for at least 10 people to retire very comfortably. So, either all his money vanished down some rabbit hole or he’s lying about not being able to retire.
