Sunday, November 4, 2018

Thoughts on Charlie Sheen following his speaking engagement at Sydney's ICC Darling Harbour Theatre

Since his time on Two and a Half Men came to an abrupt end in 2012, actor Charlie Sheen has attracted mixed attention with him being dubbed one of Hollywood's bad boys.

He revealed in 2015 that he had HIV and that he was diagnosed in 2011 which may or may not have sent him into his downward spiral. He has never actually confirmed that it did, only hinted that it had.

The media was very cruel to him and mocked him and his assertations that he had tiger blood and was an Adonis who was winning at life.

He was also in the news for his relationships with his ex wives and accused of being violent and a womanising slimeball.

I can't really comment on whether or not these things are true because as anyone knows, only half the story is told by the media. I'm telling the Pro Charlie Sheen half but skimming over the details because without speaking to him directly I actually can't comment. It would just be conjecture and opinion.

Earlier in the year he announced that he would be coming downunder on a speaking tour. Given how many shows I go to, I couldn't exactly not go to it, so i bought a ticket.

Between buying the ticket and him arriving in Sydney I re-enrolled in acting classes after a five year break. I have three classes a week and then outside of that I have several rehearsals, one of which fell on the night on Charlie Sheen's engagement at the ICC in Sydney.

Fortunately, the event was held close to where acting rehearsals are. It was a five minute walk. I still thought I was going to miss out because as much as I wanted to see Charlie Sheen live, acting is way more important.

The speaking engagement started at 7:30pm so I did miss most of it but then just before 9pm decided I'd go to the final part. I caught the last half hour before going back to acting practice afterwards. As I walked in, Charlie was talking to host and well known Australian broadcasting personality, Richard Wilkins about Two and a Half Men. He said that given the chance he would return to Two and a Half Men and although he didn't explicitly say so, he indicated that he didn't like his replacement, Ashton Kutcher.

He briefly talked about his HIV diagnosis and how his mother had been there for him. Some photos of him and his family were shown on the screens in the theatre which has a capacity of 2500.


There was a brief question and answer session where Charlie answered pre-organised questions about Two and a Half Men, crazy things he'd done in a car by himself. He said something about falling asleep in a car and then being arrested. It's unknown if it was his car. That detail was left out of what he said.

He and Richard then answered a few other questions before the evening closed.

The impression I was left with from the brief half hour I was at the speaking event was that Charlie is extremely misunderstood and that he's not the bad boy that the media says he is, either that or he's learned from his mistakes and it's changed him. I also got the impression that he cares a great deal about his family whether that's his parents, his siblings or his children and grandchildren.

I don't really want to give this a rating as I was only there a short time so I'm not sure it would be fair, but I'd probably give it a 4/5 and the ICC staff were brilliant as well. They get a 5/5 which is very different to the staff at ANZ Stadium on Friday night at Taylor Swift's show.

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