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Charlie Sheen showed great promise as an actor since he landed his first acting gig in the 80s. And, in no time, he became a big-name star in Hollywood. During the early stages of his career, Sheen appeared in films such as Platoon (1986), Wall Street (1987), Young Guns (1988), The Rookie (1990), The Three Musketeers (1993), and The Arrival (1996). Then, in 2000, he made his small-screen debut by replacing Michael J. Fox for the last two seasons of the ABC sitcom Spin City.
Three years later, Charlie Sheen was cast in the leading role of the CBS sitcom, Two and a Half Men. This shortly became one of Sheen’s most iconic roles up to date. Sheen stayed on the show from 2003 to 2011, receiving multiple Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy nominations for his performance. Even more, during his eighth and final season on the show, Sheen was making $1.8 million per episode!
Despite the fact that Sheen helped Two and a Half Men make $155 million in his last season on the show alone, the actor ended up exiting this popular sitcom under terrible circumstances. Of course, fans weren’t happy when Ashton Kutcher replaced Sheen as the leading man in the show, but if Two and a Half Men had been shot down after Sheen’s departure, the show would’ve lost millions.
Charlie Sheen Was Making Almost $2 Million per Episode During His Last Season in Two and a Half Men
In 2003, Sheen was cast as Charlie Harper in the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men, which followed the popular Monday nighttime slot of Everybody Loves Raymond. Shortly after it came out, this sitcom attracted millions of fans, surpassing 14 million viewers each season.
During its 12-season run, the show received multiple award nominations, including 46 Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards for Charlie Sheen’s performance. The show even won the award for Favorite TV Comedy at the 35th People’s Choice Awards.
One of the most successful parts of the show was Sheen’s performance. After all, this actor won an ALMA Award and gained three Emmy Award nominations and two Golden Globe Award nominations for his work on this sitcom. He was so successful and loved by the fans, that by the eighth season of Two and a Half Men, Sheen was making $1.78 million per episode.
In fact, in 2011, Charlie Sheen set a Guinness World Record for Twitter as the “Fastest Time to Reach 1 Million Followers” as well as the Guinness record for “Highest Paid TV Actor Per Episode – Current” for his salary in Two and a Half Men.
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The Reason Why Charlie Sheen Was Fired from Two and a Half Men Actually Makes Sense
By the time the eighth season of Two and a Half Men was in the making, Charlie Sheen was proving to be a difficult actor to work with. In 2011, production for the show had to go on hiatus while the actor underwent a substance rehabilitation program in his home, his third attempt at rehab in 12 months.
A month later, CBS had to cancel the season’s four remaining episodes after Sheen publicly made offensive comments about the series’ creator, Chuck Lorre. Things got so bad that Warner Bros. banned Sheen from entering its production lot altogether. Sheen’s response was to demand a 50 percent raise publicly, claiming that he was underpaid.
Ultimately, the feud with CBS and Warner Bros. resulted in Sheen being fired from Two and a Half Men in March 2011. In the aftermath of his dismissal, Sheen continued to feud with Lorre and also filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against him and Warner Bros.
Since its premiere in 2003, Two and a Half Men became one of the most popular sitcoms of all time. In fact, the success of the series led to it being the third-highest revenue-generating program for 2012, earning approximately $3.24 million an episode. Charlie Sheen alone helped the sitcom make $155 million during his last season on the show.
That’s why fans were shocked to learn that Two and a Half Men would go on despite Sheen’s departure from the show. In 2011, Sheen’s character was killed off-screen and was replaced by Ashton Kutcher as Walden Schmidt, a billionaire who buys Charlie’s house after his death.
Surprisingly, continuing the show with Kutcher seemed to be the right choice. The attention Two and a Half Men received due to the change in characters gave the series a boost. The ratings for the show rose 13% to 15 million and Kutcher’s debut episode became the highest-rated episode since the series began.
Kutcher replaced Sheen as the highest-paid U.S. actor currently on the air, receiving $700,000 per episode. The show’s creator, Chuck Lorre, and most of the cast had nothing but praise for Kutcher, believing he had “saved the show”. Clearly, ending the show after Sheen’s departure would’ve cost Two and a Half Men millions of dollars.
