Jon Cryer said he earned roughly one-third of Charlie Sheen’s per-episode pay on the hit sitcom Two and a Half Men, and described the pay discrepancy and behind-the-scenes dynamics in the new Netflix documentary aka Charlie Sheen.
Cryer, 60, told the documentary that at the height of the series Sheen was earning $1.9 million per episode, a figure reported by Forbes, while Cryer said he made about $620,000 per episode, a number reported by The Hollywood Reporter. Cryer said he felt the disparity reflected the network’s willingness to pay heavily for Sheen even as his personal life was unraveling. “He’s in the midst of falling apart in every way that I can imagine, and he’s renegotiating his contract for another year of a show that I’m supposed to be on, too,” Cryer said, according to an account from People.
In the documentary Cryer drew an analogy to international politics, saying Sheen’s behavior produced leverage for the studio. “The dictator of North Korea was a guy named Kim Jong-Il. He acted crazy all the time and thus got enormous amounts of aid from countries who were so scared of him that they would shovel money at him. Well, that’s what happened here,” Cryer said. He added that CBS had commercial reasons to pay Sheen top dollar because the network had “pre-sold a couple extra seasons” of the series.
Sheen was dismissed from Two and a Half Men in 2011 after publicly criticizing show creator Chuck Lorre. In the documentary, Sheen described his departure, saying he told those involved he was “emotionally done” and feared returning would go “terribly wrong.” After Sheen’s exit, Ashton Kutcher joined the cast and the series continued for four additional seasons before ending in 2015.
The Netflix project coincided with the release of Sheen’s memoir, The Book of Sheen: A Memoir, and has drawn family reaction. Sheen’s daughter Sami, 21, posted on social media that she was surprised to learn from her father’s account that she was a motivating factor in his decision to seek sobriety. In a TikTok video she said, “I didn’t know I was the reason he got sober.” Excerpts in the memoir cite a December 2017 moment Sheen described involving heavy drinking and a missed appointment with his daughter that prompted him to seek help.
Sheen is the father of five children: Sami and Lola Sheen (reported ages 21 and 20 in media accounts), twins Bob and Max Sheen, 16, and daughter Cassandra Estevez, 40. The documentary and memoir explore his personal struggles, recovery efforts and the professional fallout from his public conflicts.
Cryer’s comments add detail to long-standing accounts of pay inequities on high-profile television shows and shed light on how star power, personal conduct and network business arrangements intersected at the height of Two and a Half Men’s popularity.