NEW YORK (AP) - Charlie Sheen says he wants a raise to come back to the CBS show “Two and a Half Men.” The troubled star appeared on dueling morning show interviews Monday to continue an attack on CBS and producers of his hit sitcom for shutting down the show because of his off-set behavior.
Both ABC’s “Good Morning America” and NBC’s “Today” show aired lengthy segments of their interviews in their first and second half hours.
It was startling television that overshadowed morning-after Oscars coverage. Sheen boasted about his “epic” partying, said he’s fueled by “violent hatred” of his bosses, said he cleaned up from drugs at home at his “Sober Valley Lodge” and said he’s “tired of pretending I’m not a total, bitchin’ rock star from Mars.”
NBC interviewer Jeff Rossen appeared taken aback when Sheen said he wanted to be paid $3 million an episode to return to the show. He’s reportedly paid $1.8 million an episode now, one of the highest-paid actors on television.
“You want a raise?” Rossen asked.
Replied Sheen: “Yeah, look what they put me through.”
On ABC, Sheen said to correspondent Andrea Canning that he planned to sue his bosses.
“Wouldn’t you?” he said. “I’ve got a whole family to support and love. People beyond me are relying on that. I’m here to collect. They’re going to lose. They’re going to lose in a courtroom, so I would recommend that they settle out of court.”
While Sheen said in a radio interview last week that it would be impossible to do a ninth season of “Two and a Half Men” with the show’s creators in charge, he said in the television interviews he’s ready to work another season.
He said CBS owes him an apology, “publicly, while licking my feet.”
Sheen, who was hospitalized three times in three months, said that he’s bored now with cocaine. But he said he “exposed people to magic” when they partied with him and that he loved doing drugs.
“What’s not to love?” he said on ABC. “Especially when you see how I party. It was epic. The run I was on made Sinatra, Flynn, Jagger, Richards just look like droopy-eyed armless children.”
ABC and Radar Online had Sheen’s blood and urine tested for drugs over the weekend.
The results were “a big win for Charlie Sheen, no question,” said Radar’s Dylan Howard. He said the dual tests revealed Sheen hadn’t had drugs in at least 72 hours.
“I am on a drug,” Sheen said. “It’s called Charlie Sheen. It’s not available because if you try it you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body.”
When Canning asked Sheen whether the people who supplied him with drugs were out of his life, Sheen hesitated.
“That’s nobody’s business,” he said. “I think you know the answer to that.”
The interviews heightened the competition between the two top-rated morning shows. ABC spokeswoman Alison Bridgman said Sheen had promised Saturday that ABC would get the only television interview last weekend but “changed his mind.” Both “Today” and “Good Morning America” said they planned to air more segments of their interview on Tuesday, and ABC is planning a “20/20” special with Sheen on Tuesday.
Both networks had their own boasts: “Today” said Sheen had given NBC his “first morning show interview,” while ABC said it had gotten the “first television interview since the controversy erupted.”
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