The Spectacle Blog
Tuesday morning on MSNBC, Joe Scarborough and Willie Geist were treating Charlie Sheen’s latest out-of-control escapades as a joke, but his co-host Mika Brzezinski kept insisting that Sheen is in serious trouble and needs psychiatric help.
Mika’s right.
Sheen claims he’s now drug-free. If he’s not on drugs — and the Two and a Half Men star’s penchant for cocaine is legendary — then his outrageous behavior and statements in a series of interviews must be viewed as symptomatic of mental illness. In recent days:
- Sheen was denounced by the Anti-Defamation League after a radio interview in which he mocked Two and a Half Men producer Chuck Lorre as “Chaim Levine”;
- CBS canceled the rest of the show’s season;
- Sheen threatened to sue Lorre, CBS and Warner Brothers;
- Sheen publicly demanded that his record $2-million-per-episode salary be increased to $3 million per episode;
- A haggard-looking Sheen gave interviews to ABC and NBC in which, among other things, he said CBS and the producers of Two and a Half Men are trying to “destroy” him and declared: “They picked a fight with a warlock.”
- In an Tuesday interview, Sheen paraded his two 24-year-old live-in-girlfriends, one of them a porn star, with whom he says he has “an organic union of the hearts”; and
- A judge issued a restraining order to keep Sheen away from ex-wife Brooke Mueller, who has reportedly sought the help of police to get custody of the couple’s twin sons.
On Tuesday’s Morning Joe, Brzezinski mentioned bipolar disorder (also known as manic depression) as a likely diagnosis, and Sheen exhibits many symptoms of being in a manic phase. Los Angeles Times media critic James Rainey said TV news networks are “aiding and abetting” Sheen’s “epic meltdown,” a spectacle he called “nauseating.” It is certainly no longer a laughing matter. Sheen’s popularity helped him amass nearly a half-million Twitter followers within hours of joining the microblogging site Tuesday afternoon. But if Sheen’s downward spiral into madness continues much further, all those people may soon be following a corpse.
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soren| 3.1.11 @ 11:52PM
I actually hope he tries to get married to his goddesses.
Dacron Mather| 3.2.11 @ 12:39AM
As Charlie bids fair to replace the late Bishop Fulton as an example to the youth of the nation, he surely deserves a trial as TAS Great American Saloon correspondent.
Interested Conservative| 3.2.11 @ 12:57AM
Curious you reference the family namesake, the Archbishop. Martin took the name in admiration.
Patriot| 3.2.11 @ 1:18AM
I didn't know that. How awful.
Patriot| 3.2.11 @ 1:09AM
Sheen's disintegrating physically and emotionally: I turn the channel as soon as I see his face.
I feel sorry for his children. Four of them are quite young
Grzmlyk| 3.2.11 @ 8:19AM
Gosh, what's left for Charlie? I know - a cabinet position in the Obama administration. Or maybe he could run for Prez in 2016. Seems to me his credentials are perfect for the putative head of the Democrat party.
Hey Charlie: Die already, will ya?
Jasper| 3.2.11 @ 12:54PM
We've become such an ugly people.
Grzmlyk| 3.2.11 @ 3:31PM
The sooner Good Time Charlie hightails it off the planet, the less ugly we'll be.
The guy has parlayed minimal talent into hundreds of millions of dollars for sleepwalking his way through a one-joke sitcom and still complains that he's a victim because his family has become "accustomed to a certain lifestyle."
Maybe if he weren't singlehandedly supporting half the porn stars and all the coke dealers in L.A., I'd have a modicum of sympathy for him.
Or perhaps if there were a small island of character in the guy's vast sea of narcissism.
We have become an ugly people indeed; a society that creates and then elevates a Charlie Sheen is past the point of redemption. We are emulating the Weimar Republic - or is it the fall of the Roman Empire? I get my moral collapses confused.
But Charlie can do his part to make us a slightly less ugly people.
Your move, Charlie. Hey, as long as I have a bucket of hot buttered popcorn, I promise to read your obit through to the end! Finally, you'll have entertained me!
Jasper| 3.2.11 @ 5:12PM
Sheen's a pathetic dirtbag, so is anyone who gets off on watching his misery.
A Random Friar| 3.2.11 @ 8:25AM
As much as I will argue Martin Sheen's positions and politics, no father, no family should have to go through a hyper-public spectacle of their son's apparent mental illness and/or drug episode.
May he get the help he needs, sooner than later.
kingsmill| 3.2.11 @ 10:20AM
Martin Sheen was a great admirer of Ted Kennedy. His son is emulating a family hero.
Dacron Mather| 3.2.11 @ 10:26AM
So shatteringly miraculous is his survival that canonization seems in order, along with a Templeton Prize and a photo op with The Magdalene Sisters.
Martin Owens| 3.2.11 @ 11:24AM
Another Hollywood jerk pushes the self-destruct button?
Ho-hum.
I'm horribly disappointed in AmSpec, though, for even taking notice of him.
Dan Phillips| 3.2.11 @ 12:33PM
Thanks for this Stacy. I couldn't agree more. The media is behaving irresponsibly in this matter by continuing to give Charlie Sheen a platform so they can generate ratings and headlines. It's like the sober guy at a party who eggs on the drunk girl to continue embarassing herself. The chivalrous gentleman would step in and protect the girl from further embarrassment, not provide her a platform to further embarrass herself. Or the meansprited bully who coaxes the mentally handicaped kid into doing something embarrassing that he will then broadcast to the world. The adults in the room should recognize what is happinging and put a stop to it.
That Charlie Sheen is not mentally stable is obvious to the layman which is why all these laymen are speculating about a diagnosis. To continue with these interview spectacles when he is clearly compromised is unethical.
Charlie Sheen clearly needs help. It is time for the people who love him, his doctors, and even the law to intervene. A responsible media would protect Sheen from himself, not give him more rope to hang himself.
Have we become so scandal and sensation obsessed that we have lost all sense of honor and decency and normal human compassion? It is long past time to look away from this train wreck and do what we can to get a man the help he needs.
Jasper| 3.2.11 @ 12:57PM
There's no doubt we've become brutish; honor and decency are mere memories for many in our country.
Jasper| 3.2.11 @ 12:57PM
There's no doubt we've become brutish; honor and decency are mere memories for many in our country.
jonnyo| 4.16.11 @ 1:46AM
train wreck for sure. he needs to get his act together and realize that the he's just trying to act like a diva. - http://www.nutraslimhca.com/