After one of the most public, bizarre, and entertaining meltdowns in modern entertainment memory, Charlie Sheen is returning to TV, and he’s celebrating his comeback with a cover profile in Rolling Stone. Sheen’s new show, Anger Management, airs on FX later this month. I’m curious to see how it turns out. I wasn’t crazy about the Adam Sandler/Jack Nicholson movie the show is loosely based on, but FX has a really good track record with offbeat comedies. So it could be good? What happens if Charlie Sheen comes back with a show that’s actually really good?
Sheen is on the promotional trail for his new show, and his tone, at least in Rolling Stone, is a continuation of the contrition he showed back at the Emmys. He says that he realizes he was being a huge asshole last year and that he was “in denial” about the true state of things… but I want to remind you that he walked away from Two and a Half Men with a $100 million dollar settlement. I had no sympathy for Sheen last year and I still don’t, even in the face of his new, apologetic attitude. I thought it then and I think it now—all that sh*t last year was about Sheen wanting off Two and a Half Men and as crazy as he was acting, he forced CBS/Warner Bros TV to cancel the final episodes of the season which is what opened up the legal ground for him to score such a huge settlement. Charlie Sheen is a lot of things, asshole chief among them, but he’s survived decades of scandal and setback and always manages to pick himself up and come back stronger than ever. He’s a cockroach like that.
And now he’s returning to television, cashing in on his newest incarnation as completely batsh*t insane, using his reputation as a trainwreck to advertise his show, and trying to sell contrition in Rolling Stone even as he talks about his drinking habits. To everyone who got mad at me last year for failing to show proper sympathy for a person who was “sick”, do you still have compassion for Charlie Sheen? Or can we all admit that that asshole is walking away from some of the worst public behavior from a celebrity not only a hundred million dollars richer but with the prospect of being rewarded with a successful television show, and that isn’t worth our sympathy at all?
(Lainey: attached - Charlie at the LA Kings hockey game last night with his douchey looking friends who still think it’s 1990. That’s the problem, non? In Charlie’s mind it’s 1990 forever. )
