Warner fires Sheen from hit sitcom

LOS ANGELES - Charlie Sheen was fired Monday from "Two and a HalfMen" by Warner Bros. Television following repeated misbehavior andweeks of the actor's angry, often-manic media campaign against hisstudio bosses.

The action was taken after "careful consideration" and iseffective immediately, the studio said in a statement. No decisionhas been made on the show's future without its star, said a Warnerspokesman.

The actor, who has used TV, radio and social media to create abig megaphone for himself, was not silent for long.

In a text to The Associated Press, Sheen responded, with the F-word and "They lose," followed by the word "Trolls." Asked if heplanned to sue, Sheen texted back, "Big." As for his next move,Sheen texted, "A big one."

The self-proclaimed "Vatican assassin warlock" has spent the lastweek ragging on his former bosses, insisting he was clean whilebarely sounding coherent, and fighting for custody of his twintoddlers. And the apparently unlimited forum he was being given israising questions about the media's role in all of it.

Were they, to use a term from the addiction world, "enabling"Sheen to continue on what seemed to many a path dangerous to hiscareer, his health and his family? To use a stronger word, were theyexploiting him?

And if yes, did that matter? To what extent, if any, did themedia have a responsibility to consider what's best for theirsubject - especially a rich TV star aggressively courting publicity?

What seemed clear is that we were watching one of the mostastonishingly visible celebrity meltdowns in memory. Sheen'sramblings promoting his new lifestyle - not bipolar, but "bi-winning," he called it - took him from NBC's "Today" to CNN's "PiersMorgan Tonight" to ABC's "20/20," and onwards. (The Associated Pressalso interviewed Sheen.) By the weekend, his record-setting Twitterfeed was closing in on 2 million followers, SiriusXM Radio hadbroadcast 24 hours of straight Sheen on a special channel, TigerBlood Radio, and he'd done his own 50-minute Internet show, "Sheen'sKorner."

How much coverage would be enough, and would it ever stop? Theharshest criticism came not from the addiction community or mentalhealth professionals, but from media critics.

"Enabling is exactly the right word," said prominent mediablogger Jeff Jarvis. "The drug Sheen is on right now is attention,and he's overdosing on that drug. This is a cynical act by themedia. It's exploitation."

In an interview, Jarvis raised the possibility some have raisedin interviews with Sheen: that he may have bipolar disorder.

"If what we're seeing is bipolar disorder, then it isn't CharlieSheen we are hearing right now - it's the disorder," he said. "Andwe are delaying his recovery."

Jarvis wasn't alone. "The coverage has become excessive, evendangerous," wrote Julie Moos on the website of the PoynterInstitute. Kansas City Star TV critic Aaron Barnhart wrote that themedia should stop returning Sheen's texts and calls, and insteadshould be "using their journalism to identify the people aroundCharlie who can actually get him into a rehab facility - against hiswill if necessary."

Not surprisingly, the networks did not agree.

"Not at all," said ABC's Andrea Canning, when asked by mediacritic Howard Kurtz on CNN Sunday whether she'd had any hesitationabout her extensive interview with Sheen for "20/20," whichgenerated huge ratings. "I don't know if you can really stop thetrain once people are this interested in it."

And no, she replied when asked if now, the actor had had enoughair time. "You know, I still think he has some things to say," shesaid.

An ABC News spokesman, Jeffrey Schneider, said the coverage wasjustified. "Look, Charlie Sheen is the highest paid actor on TV'stop comedy show, whose personal life has been a huge topic ofconversation for months. He also clearly had an interest in beinginterviewed and getting his side of the story out," he said.

At least one TV personality was pointedly refraining fromcovering Sheen.

"I'm not gonna do it," Craig Ferguson told his audience onCBS'"Late Late Show." He compared the frenzy to an 18th-centurypractice of people paying a penny to peer into the windows ofasylums to watch the mentally ill.

Of course, it was impossible to know what Sheen is sufferingfrom, if anything. Was it the drug abuse he'd acknowledged in thepast but said was now over? Was it a mental issue? Or was he merelyacting?

"In that case, he deserves an Academy award," said Todd Boyd, aprofessor of popular culture at the University of SouthernCalifornia. "I never saw him act that well on `Two and a Half Men.'"

In any case, "Only he knows how much he is really falling apart,"said psychiatrist Gail Saltz. But, she added, all the mediaattention couldn't be good.

"The spotlight is almost never helpful to people in thesesituations," Saltz said. "It makes it harder to evaluate mistakes,to think things through, to take a different turn."

And potentially more problematic than the impact on Sheen, shenoted, was the impact on his children. Sheen has five kids, theyoungest his nearly 2-year-old twins with estranged wife BrookeMueller Sheen.

"Will this be good for his children to look back on? No - none ofthis is good for the children," Saltz said. She added, though, thatthe media "are not therapists. They don't really have theresponsibility to protect Sheen."

A fellow mental health professional, psychoanalyst Mark Smaller,agreed. He said the best one could hope for from the media wascontext - for example, when Sheen ragged on Alcoholics Anonymous.

"Yes, for some AA doesn't work, but for many it provides acritical function," Smaller said. "So I'd hope the media couldprovide information like that."

In fact, the blinding attention to Sheen could actually turn outto be a positive thing, suggested Deni Carise, the senior clinicalofficer for the Phoenix House drug treatment center. "The coveragecould be a real wake-up call to others who may need attention forsimilar problems, to seek out help," she said.

Carise did not pretend to know the nature of Sheen's problems,though she said his behavior in interviews was "clearly worrisome."She said she hoped the media coverage would compel his friends andfamily to help him.

Though some media watchers worried about exploitation, otherssaid it was unreasonable for anyone to expect outlets to ignore atroubled celebrity this famous.

"Sure, the media have been Charlie Sheen's enablers," said MartyKaplan, director of the Norman Lear Center at the USC AnnenbergSchool of Communication. "But he wouldn't be getting wall-to-wallcoverage if that didn't win big ratings, so it's the audience - us -who are his codependents. Is the attention making his behaviorworse? Maybe. But the media didn't invent people's urge torubberneck at car crashes."

And the ratings HAVE been big. ABC said its "20/20" special lastweek generated its biggest numbers for any ABC newsmagazine telecastsince February 2009, among adults 18-49 and 25-54.

So in one respect, Sheen was still winning - er, "bi-winning."

"Fame," said Boyd, the USC professor, "is perhaps as much a drugas the real drugs. And it's legal."

Or, to quote another tweet from comedian MacDonald: "I pray thatsomeone can help @CharlieSheen before he becomes even moresuccessful, richer and happier."

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Andrea Canning interviews actor CharlieSheen for a Special Edition of 20/20. Warner Bros. Televisionannounced Monday that it fired Sheen from the top-rated Two and aHalf Men.