Actor Charlie Sheen was fired on Monday from his top-rated US TV comedy Two and A Half Men after more than a week of insults to producers and manic interviews.“After careful consideration, Warner Bros. Television has terminated Charlie Sheen’s services on “Two and a Half Men” effective immediately,” Warner Bros Television said in a statement.
Sheen, 45, is the highest paid actor on U.S television and Two and A Half Men is the most popular comedy for network CBS which broadcasts the series.
But the remainder of the current season was canceled 10 days ago after Sheen called producer and co-creator Chuck Lorre a “stupid, stupid little man.”
The actor followed up with a week of rambling, sometimes manic, TV and radio interviews boasting that he is “winning” and has “tiger blood”, while insisting he is drug-free and sober after a period of rehabilitation in January.
Sheen shrugged off Monday’s firing with a characteristic mixture of nonchalance and more insults.
“This is very good news,” he said in a statement obtained by celebrity website TMZ.com.
“They continue to be in breach, like so many whales. It is a big day of gladness at the Sober Valley Lodge because now I can take all of the bazillions, never have to look at them again and I never have to put on those silly shirts for as long as this warlock exists in the terrestrial dimension.”
A spokesman for Warner Bros. Television said on Monday that no decision had been made about the future of Two and A Half Men. The comedy, in which Sheen plays a womanising bachelor, is a huge generator of advertising revenue for CBS and makes millions in syndication rights for Warner Bros. Television.
Sheen had a contract with the TV show that runs through to the end of the 2012 TV season.