Who knew Charlie Sheen was the “half” in Two and a Half Men? Half man and half wingnut. The sitcom star is on a roll with winning lines including “I have Adonis DNA and Tiger Blood.” “Yeah, I am on a drug. It's called Charlie Sheen! It's not available, because if you try it once, you will die.” “People can’t process me with a normal brain.” And the ever-popular, "I'm underpaid.”
However, with the amount of publicity he has drummed up, including several morning shows and coverage from Perez to People, maybe he is underpaid. TV hasn’t had this much fight since Shannen Doherty took on Beverly Hills. Charlie, if you could try for controversial instead of insane you may just get this PR stuff right.
In the PR biz you book TV or radio interviews so your celebrity spokesperson can deliver message points to millions of viewers and listeners. In Charlie’s case, his message is loud and clear – he is crazy!
It’s evidently not enough that CBS fired the guy and closed up shop for the popular show this season, but now the celebrity partyer has gone above and beyond. He would like a raise! Yup, you heard right. Charlie now wants $3 million an episode…and he’s demanding CBS gives a public apology. And this is after he trashed-talked show producer Chuck Lorrie, CBS, AA…you name it. He believes that CBS is taking away his money and that’s where he draws the line. When asked if he was angry, his answer was “no, just passionate.”
This is almost better than the Tiger Woods controversy and definitely better than the Academy Awards.
Speaking of PR types, Charlie’s longtime publicist just resigned. Can anyone blame him? I think we are past the point of salvaging this guy. Best bet now is to just keep playing out the crazy man routine and own it!
Usually when there’s a celebrity PR crisis, the celeb in the crosshairs manages to humbly apologize and go into rehab. But not Charlie! He’ll continue to do back-to-back interviews where you can almost see the steam coming out of his ears (I bet there’s a lack of gray matter in between to hold it in).
How will this end? He sure is funny on the TV show and, according to him, has several movie offers on the table. But, here’s my guess: Charlie is destined to find himself the subject of SNL skits, South Park plots and Family Guy jokes- but the damage will be short-lived. Because crazy as he is, the man sure can make a funny sitcom.