Just like he vowed on 20/20, Charlie Sheen is suing his Two and a Half Men bosses for "tons" -- and they're ready to take him on!
On Thursday, Sheen filed a $100 million-plus lawsuit against Warner Bros. and show creator Chuck Lorre, accusing them of using Sheen as a convenient excuse to cancel the show. And why, you might ask, would Chuck Lorre want to cancel his most successful show? Sheen's lawyer says it was a conspiracy to save himself money and "punish Mr. Sheen." Charlie Sheen is trying really hard to turn Chuck Lorre into the bad guy in this scenario, as this line from the lawsuit demonstrates:
Chuck Lorre, one of the richest men in television who is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, believes himself to be so wealthy and powerful that he can unilaterally decide to take money away from the dedicated cast and crew of the popular television series, 'Two and a Half Men,' in order to serve his own ego and self-interest, and make the star of the Series the scapegoat for Lorre's own conduct.
See? Charlie Sheen isn't actually crazy. He's just a scapegoat! The lawyer also alleges that Lorre fired Sheen when he was sick, which would be a violation of the law. (Although if Charlie Sheen was sick, doing cocaine for five days straight is a pretty funny way of showing it. Do you think he got a doctor's note?)
The actor filed the suit on behalf of himself and the Two and a Half Men crew, demanding that they all get paid for the eight episodes that were cancelled after Sheen's manic media blitz. Sounds generous, until you realize that Sheen (who got $1.25 million per episode) was making more than double the salary of anyone else in the cast or crew -- and that Warner Brothers has already agreed to pay everyone but Sheen for four of those eight episodes. Not to mention the fact that Charlie Sheen got the show shut down in the first place with his erratic behavior (that, and insulting Chuck Lorre on national radio).
But Chuck Lorre has a lawyer, too, and he fired back a retort a few hours later.
"The allegations in the complaint against Mr. Lorre are as recklessly false and unwarranted as Mr. Sheen's rantings in the media," the TV producer's lawyer told TMZ. "These accusations are simply imaginary. This lawsuit is about a fantasy 'lottery' pay-day for Charlie Sheen... Chuck Lorre's concern has been and continues to be about Mr. Sheen's health."
While Sheen claims that he was fired out of the producers' spite and greed, Warner Bros. has already outlined their reasons for firing Sheen in a letter to Sheen's attorney. In addition to his "dangerously self-destructive conduct" (which the Warner Bros. refers to as "obvious"), the letter says that Sheen was forgetting lines and missing cues -- and they have outtakes to prove it. The letter also says that CBS chartered a plane to get Sheen to go to rehab, and he outright refused. Furthermore, there was apparently a "morals clause" in his contract which forbids him from doing things like, say, hiring escorts and furnishing them with drugs.
From our perspective, it doesn't sound like Sheen has much of a case -- but it does sound like Warner Bros. has enough ammo for a countersuit against its former star. How long until Charlie Sheen discovers that yelling "Winning!" doesn't get him very far in a court of law?
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