Charlie Sheen: 'My partying days are behind me'
In an interview Tuesday on NBC's "Today," the 50-year-old Sheen says he tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS. Credit: AP
Actor Charlie Sheen, who revealed on NBC's "Today" show Tuesday that he is HIV positive, subsequently issued a long open letter detailing his condition.
"Roughly four years ago, I suddenly found myself in the throws [sic] of a seismic and debilitating three-day cluster-migraine-like headache," Sheen, 50, wrote. "I was emergently hospitalized with what I believed to be a brain tumor or perhaps some unknown pathology. I was partially correct. Following a battery of endless tests, that included a hideous spinal tap, it was sadly and shockingly revealed to me that I was, in fact, positive for HIV."
In an attached statement, his physician, Dr. Robert Huizenga, wrote that Sheen had come to see him "with an upper viral infection followed by joint aches, swallowing complaints and then progressive severe headaches." When tests uncovered the human immunodeficiency virus, Sheen "was immediately placed on four antiretroviral drugs and his HIV viral blood levels thankfully dropped to undetectable. He has tolerated his antiretroviral cocktail and by faithfully complying with the daily pills, his viral HIV load has remained consistently undetectable."
Initially, however, "The news was a 'mule kick' to my soul," Sheen wrote. "Those impossible words I absorbed and then tried to convince myself, that I was stuck, suspended, or even stranded inside some kind of alternate reality or nightmare, were to the absolute contrary."
He conceded that during his partying years he "dazedly chose (or hired) the companionship of unsavory and insipid types," but insisted he used protection and was honest about his condition. "Sadly," he wrote, "my truth soon became their treason, as a deluge of blackmail and extortion took center stage in this circus of deceit. To date, I have paid out countless millions to these desperate charlatans."
Now, he says: "My partying days are behind me. My philanthropic days are ahead of me."
In his interview, Sheen told Matt Lauer that he would no longer pay blackmail money, adding that "I release myself from this prison today."
"What people forget is that's money they're taking from my children. They think it's just me, but I've got five kids and a granddaughter," he said.
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