Charlie Sheen reveals he is HIV positive
Doctors gave him the diagnosis that he had the virus that causes AIDS
WASHINGTON,(AFP) - US actor Charlie Sheen, as well known for his on-screen work as his off-screen debauchery with drugs and booze, revealed Tuesday he is HIV-positive -- and has paid millions in blackmail to hide his secret.
"I am here to admit that I am in fact HIV-positive," the 50-year-old Sheen said on the NBC morning talk show "Today."
"It s a hard three letters to absorb, you know? "It s a turning point in one s life."
Sheen, whose stint as a middle-aged womanizing bachelor on the sitcom "Two and a Half Men" made him America s highest paid TV actor, said he has known of his condition for about four years but does not know how he contracted the virus.
He said he has paid "upwards of $10 million" to people who knew about his condition to keep them quiet and that he is coming clean to stop those "shakedowns."
"What people forget is that it s money taken from my children," he said about the extortion. Sheen has been married three times and has five children.
Asked if he is still paying such money, he said "Not after today, I am not. I think I released myself from this prison today."
Most recently known for the TV series "Anger Management," Sheen had prominent film roles in the 1980s, particularly in Vietnam war movie "Platoon" and "Wall Street" with Michael Douglas.
Sheen said that when he first started feeling sick, with terrible migraines and sweating so much at night it drenched his bed, it was so bad he thought he had a brain tumor and was close to death.
After undergoing tests -- "spinal taps, all that crap" -- doctors gave him the diagnosis that he had the virus that causes AIDS.
