Charlie Sheen has addressed recent public interest in his revelations about past sexual encounters with men, clarifying comments that, he says, have been misunderstood.
The 59-year-old actor, best known for films like Platoon and Wall Street and TV shows including Two and a Half Men, spoke candidly in his new memoir The Book of Sheen and the Netflix documentary series aka Charlie Sheen about having sex with men during his years using crack cocaine.
“That’s where it was born, or sparked,” he told PEOPLE last month.
“Some of it was weird. A lot of it was f***ing fun, and life goes on.”
However, Sheen has now offered further context in a new appearance on In Depth with Graham Bensinger, saying some have misinterpreted what kind of experiences he was referring to.
“It wasn’t full-fledged”
“When people say ‘sex with men,’ you immediately think of, like, butt sex. Sorry to be graphic, but that’s kind of where the mind goes, right? But it wasn’t that,” he said during Wednesday’s interview.
“I don’t want to be like, ‘Okay, I did this thing, but this and that part of it didn’t happen.’ But it didn’t.”
He added:
“It’s not a shame thing. It’s just kind of like a, ‘Huh, [sex with men] is a bit of a broad category.’”
Sheen joked that perhaps the lack of a traditional university experience had something to do with it:
“They say you experiment in college, you know? I never went to college, so maybe that explains it.”
Substance use and openness
Sheen’s comments come in the context of his long history with substance use, which he has spoken openly about. He was diagnosed with HIV in 2011, a fact he publicly revealed in 2015, and lost his role on Two and a Half Men after a series of public controversies.
