Charlie Sheen says he once shoved an ice cube up his butt to stay awake while filming a scene during the height of his drug addiction, a moment he described in his Netflix docuseries "aka Charlie Sheen."
Sheen, 60, said he was shooting the 1990 film Free Money when he found himself nodding off during a bar scene and asked for a glass of ice. "There was a little bathroom, and I went in there, and I took an ice cube, and I shoved it up my butt," the Golden Globe winner told viewers. "Man, I was wide awake just enough to get back on the mark and finish the bucket scene with an ice cube in my ass," he said in the series, which premiered Wednesday.
The anecdote is one of several candid recollections in the series and in Sheen's memoir, Book of Sheen, that trace his long struggle with substance abuse. He also recounted suffering an 18-hour nosebleed while shooting amid cocaine use, and said he once persuaded director Brett Ratner to remove a problematic shot from a film. "I got director Brett Ratner to agree to make that shot go away forever. And he did, because we've never seen it, right?" Sheen said, adding that his priorities had become "wonky" as he continued to work to finance his addiction: "I was taking jobs to just fuel the habits."
Sheen described multiple interventions and stints in rehab. His first intervention, he said, took place in August 1990 and included a "weird mix" of attendees, among them actor Rob Lowe, a former seventh-grade teacher and a phone call from Clint Eastwood. After one relapse, Sheen said he overdosed and was turned in to authorities by his father, Martin Sheen — an act the actor called the "biggest betrayal" at the time.
He said he later sought sobriety, relapsed into pill addiction while working on the sitcom Two and a Half Men and during his marriage to Denise Richards, and went through further treatments. Richards, who has publicly discussed their marriage, appears in the documentary and at one point apologized for becoming "f–king emotional" while insisting the cameras capture the truth of their fractured family. Both Sheen and Richards attended the Los Angeles premiere of the docuseries last week and posed together on the red carpet.
Sheen has described a long, intermittent path to sobriety; he told the series and promotional interviews that he has been sober since 2017. The documentary and his memoir aim to chronicle that trajectory, from early success and high-profile roles to addiction, legal troubles and efforts to rebuild.
"aka Charlie Sheen" presents archival footage and interviews in which the actor discusses his behavior and its consequences for his family and career. The program adds to a broader public record in which Sheen has previously acknowledged substance problems, high-profile incidents and the professional fallout that followed. The series and the memoir reiterate a timeline of interventions, relapses and treatment that spans decades and features moments he and others characterized as both extreme and clarifying.
The series is available to stream on Netflix.