Charlie Sheen recalls ‘victory and tiger blood’ a decade after his life got off track

Charlie Sheen’s illustrious acting career was undoubtedly eclipsed in the media for his ‘wizarding’ days of ‘winning’ during a public collapse a decade ago.

On the 10th anniversary of Sheen’s ‘tiger blood’ collapse, the now 55-year-old is recounting his fall and making plans for his ‘Act 3’ in a new candid interview for Yahoo! Training.

In 2011, Sheen was at the top of his professional career as the highest-paid actor on television when he plunged into substance abuse and mental health problems.

‘People have [said to] me, “Hey, man, that was so cool, it was so fun to watch. It was so cool to be a part, support and all that energy and, you know, we put that on the man,” ‘Sheen recalled in her interview.

‘My thinking behind this is: “Ah, yes, great. I’m so happy to have traded early retirement for a hashtag,” “he continued, referring to #winning and #tigerblood – two of his famous phrases that permanently was part of the zeitgeist of pop culture.

A decade ago, Charlie had dozens of high-profile film roles on his resume and was grossing nearly two million per episode on his hit CBS show Two and Half Men.

Despite his booming professional success, internally the actor was on a dark path of addiction and mental health problems after the divorce of his third wife Brooke Mueller.

Sheen gave a series of highly publicized interviews with various media, where he seemed hyper, unbalanced and dispersed. The glassy-eyed star uttered his now iconic phrases declaring that he was ‘winning’, drinking ‘tiger blood’, had ‘adonis DNA’ and other ramblings.

When network executives tried to lure him, he demanded a higher salary and got involved in a public feud with CBS powers, like Les Moonves and Chuck Lorre.

‘There is a time when [former CBS CEO] Les Moonves and his principal lawyer, Bruce, were at my house and said, “OK, Warner’s jet is fueled on the runway. The wheels fly in an hour and go to rehab, right?” My first thought was like really … there is some comic value to what my first thought was, ‘Sheen recalled.

‘At that moment, when I said,’ Oh, crap, I finally got the Warner jet. ‘It was all I heard,’ he continued, adding with regret. ‘But if I could have gone back in time to that moment, I would have gotten into the jet. And it was that giant turn to the left at that moment that led, you know, to an unfortunate sequence of public and insane events.

Sheen was fired from Two and a Half Men in March 2011 and replaced in the series by Ashton Kutcher.

“There were 55 different ways to deal with this situation and I chose number 56,” he said. ‘And then, you know, I think the growth for me post-meltdown or melt forward or melt somewhere – as you want to label it – has to start with absolute ownership of my role in all of this.’ Adding that his behavior was ‘desperately youthful’.

Unknown to the public at the time, Sheen was diagnosed with HIV that same year – a fact that he would reveal later in 2015. When he finally announced his diagnosis, the actor revealed that since 2011 he had disbursed almost $ 10 million to maintain his HIV status of secrecy.

“I think it was the drugs or the residual effects of the drugs … and it was also an ocean of stress and a volcano of disdain,” said the Major League star about his collapse. “It was all self-generated, you know.”

‘I was getting charged and my brain was not working properly,’ Sheen continued. “To say it was a little overwhelming is a radical understatement.”

The 2011 incidents were not Sheen’s first or even second contact with substance abuse. Charlie was arrested for drugs and assault in the past and in 1998 he overdosed on cocaine, suffering a stroke.

He also went to rehab several times because of his problems.

After being fired from Two and a Half Men, Sheen performed a series of sold-out solo shows at Radio City Musical Hall with hordes of fans wearing tiger blood shirts and shouting ‘win’ from the audience.

The support and fanfare of his moment at the bottom, as if he were being intentionally performing, he recalls, really made the situation worse for him.

“They showed up en masse with tracks and songs, all kinds of fanfare and celebrations, you know, what I think was a public display of a moment of mental health,” he said looking back.

Shortly after his collapse, Sheen appeared to have straightened up and starred in the Anger Management on FX series for two seasons, but then left the map. He has plans, however, to return to the front of the cameras.

“I just have absolute faith that the things I will do professionally in Act 3 will put a nose in all of these things and people can celebrate me again for what I really do for a living,” he told Yahoo.