The most gripping entertainment story of the week comes courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, which has the inside line on Charlie Sheen’s mad battle to keep his HIV a secret.
It’s an exhaustive account by National Enquirer Editor-in-Chief Dylan Howard of how the volatile star brought in the lawyers, paid out millions in hush-money and even made violent threats to keep the disease under wraps.
Surreal moments include Howard holding the bottle while Sheen passed urine for a drugs test after the actor dared him to fly out so he could “prove” he was clean (a claim Howard now doubts).
There are cameos from porn stars, hard drugs, high-powered sniper rifles, and acres of unmistakable Sheen bombast.
Howard started out as a Sheen ally in the media, who put out positive, self-aggrandizing stories about the star.
But once the Enquirer got word that he had HIV and had passed it on to some of his lovers, tiger blood turned to bad blood.
Legal letters and promises of a $100 million lawsuit were accompanied by much more lurid personal threats from Sheen (“One more story, bro, and you’ll wake up looking into my f***ing eyes, you f***ing w***e pig. I f***ing dare you. Now it’s a challenge. I f***ing dare you).
But eventually they published anyway, bouncing Sheen into a tell-all TV interview with Today’s Matt Lauer in a bid to take back control of the narrative.
Sheen’s camp sent THR a statement saying the story is “unfortunate,” but didn’t deny a word.
