Charlie Sheen looks back at ‘winning and tiger blood’ a decade after his life went off the rails

Charlie Sheen’s illustrious acting career has been arguably eclipsed in the media by his ‘warlock’ days of ‘winning’ during a very public breakdown a decade ago.

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

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

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

‘My thought behind that is, “Oh, yeah, great. I’m so glad that I traded early retirement for a f***ing hashtag,”‘ he continued, referencing #winning and #tigerblood – two of his famous phrases that permanently made it into the pop culture zeitgeist. 

A decade ago, Charlie had dozens of high-profile film roles under his belt and was raking in nearly two million an episode on his CBS hit sitcom Two and Half Men.

Despite his flourishing professional success, internally the actor was heading down a dark path of addiction and mental health problems on the heels of his divorce from his third wife Brooke Mueller.  

Sheen gave a series of highly publicized interviews with various news outlets where he appeared hyper, unhinged and scattered. The glassy-eyed star uttered his now iconic phrases declaring he was ‘winning’, drinking ‘tiger blood’, had ‘adonis DNA’ and other ramblings.

When network executives tried to reel him in, he demanded a higher salary and engaged in a public feud with the powers that be at CBS like Les Moonves and Chuck Lorre.  

‘There’s a moment when [former CBS CEO] Les Moonves and his top lawyer, Bruce, were at my house and they said, “OK, the Warner jet is fueled up on the runway. Wheels up in an hour and going to rehab, right?” My first thought was sort of like really … there’s some comedy value to what my first thought was,’ Sheen recalled. 

‘In that moment, when I said, “Oh, damn, I finally get the Warner jet.” That’s all I heard,’ he continued, adding with regret. ‘But if I could go back in time to that moment, I would’ve gotten on the jet. And it was that giant left turn in that moment that led to, you know, a very unfortunate sequence of public and insane events.’

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

‘There was 55 different ways for me to handle that situation, and I chose number 56,’ he said. ‘And so, you know, I think the growth for me post-meltdown or melt forward or melt somewhere — however you want to label it — it has to start with absolute ownership of my role in all of it.’ Adding that his behavior was ‘desperately juvenile.’

Unknown to the public at the time, Sheen been diagnosed with HIV that same year- a fact he would later reveal in 2015. When he finally announced his diagnosis, the actor revealed that since 2011 he had shelled out nearly $10 million to keep his HIV status a secret.

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

‘I was getting loaded and my brain wasn’t working right,’ Sheen continued. ‘To say it was a tad overwhelming is a radical understatement.’

The 2011 incidents were not Sheen’s first or even second brush with substance abuse. Charlie has been arrested on drug and assault charges in the past and in 1998 he overdosed on cocaine, suffering a stroke. 

He’s also been to rehab several times for his issues.

After his firing from Two and a Half Men, Sheen performed a series of sold-out one-man shows at Radio City Musical hall with hoards of fans wearing tiger blood T-shirts and screaming ‘winning’ from the audience.

The support and fanfare of his rock-bottom moment as if it was being done as intentionally performative, he recalls, really made the situation worse for him.  

‘They showed up in droves with banners and songs, all types of fanfare and celebration of, you know, what I think was a very public display of a mental health moment,’ he said looking back.

On the heels of his breakdown, Sheen seemed to have righted himself and starred in the series Anger Management on FX for two seasons but then largely fell off the map. He has plans, however, to get back in front of the camera.  

‘I just, I have absolute faith that the things I’m going to do professionally in Act 3 are going to put a muzzle on all that stuff and people can celebrate me again for what I actually do for a living,’ he told Yahoo.