“Sam wasn’t my final straw; she was my first harvest,” the actor writes in his memoir of his daughter, while also sharing how his family reacted to his new documentary.
Charlie Sheen is opening up about the pivotal moment he decided to get clean.
In his new memoir, The Book of Sheen, the 60-year-old actor detailed how a moment with his daughter, Sami Sheen, ultimately led him to commit to sobriety, and quit alcohol and drugs for good following his many years of addiction.
Charlie Sheen Opens Up About Rift with 21-Year-Old Daughter Sami Sheen – Click image for related story
Charlie said it happened on the morning of December 10, 2017. He wrote that it was only 9 a.m. and he had already consumed three coffees with whiskey, which made him forget that he was supposed to pick up Sami — whom he shares with ex-wife Denise Richards — from an appointment.
Since he wasn’t sober enough to drive, the Two and a Half Men star had a friend drive him to pick up his daughter.
“Sam was very quiet,” Charlie recalled. “I didn’t need to be clairvoyant to know exactly what she was thinking.”
“Why is Dad not driving — again?” he wrote, pondering what Sami may have been thinking to herself. “Why isn’t it just the two of us in the car like it used to be? When will that moment ever return? When will Dad ever return? I miss him.”
Sami is Charlie’s first daughter from his former marriage to Richards. He also shares Lola, 20, with Richards. From his marriage to Brooke Mueller, Charlie is dad to 16-year-old twins Max and Bob. His firstborn child is Cassandra Estevez, 41, whom he welcomed with his high school girlfriend.
While detailing the moment with Sami that made him decide to get sober once and for all, Charlie noted that there was “only one thing that felt worse than betraying myself, and that was failing my children.”
“I knew exactly what had to be done,” he explained. “Sami wasn’t my final straw; she was my first harvest.”
According to Charlie, the next day, he took “two Valiums and drank three beers,” before he quit drugs and alcohol for good — and has been sober since.
The Wall Street star has been promoting his memoir, out Tuesday, and his Netflix documentary, aka Charlie Sheen.
During the premiere of the two-part doc last week, Charlie opened up about how his family — including his children — reacted to the tell-all film.
“As any parents would be, there was initial concern,” he told E! News. “And not for how it would be received, but how it might affect me, and was I really ready to cannonball into this deep end.”
Charlie Sheen Reveals Past Sexual Encounters with Men, Claims He Kept It Secret Due to ‘Extortion’ – Click image for related story
“I told them if I don’t [do it], then I’m never going to control the narrative, or at least influence it or apply some truth on top of the fiction,” he continued. “But once they felt that I was confident that this was the right thing to do and the right time to do it, they were completely supportive.”
This comes as both Charlie and Sami have addressed their apparent estrangement during the former’s promo tour.
During an appearance on Good Morning America last Friday, the Major League star said he’s not entirely sure what went wrong between him and his 21-year-old daughter.
“As long as everybody is still in the game, there’s always a shot for a better tomorrow. I don’t really know what I did, that’s the problem,” Charlie explained. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to apologize for. But I have absolute faith that this is not a forever thing. Her and I will work it out.”
Charlie Sheen Makes Public Plea to Two and a Half Men Co-Star Jon Cryer – Click image for related story
He stressed that his connection with Sami is “too valuable” to throw away.
“We have relationships. We have legitimate ones,” he said of his kids. “They really have nothing to do with anything that I do for a living.”
Two days before his interview on GMA aired, Sami threw shade at her father in a TikTok video following his new People cover story.
In the short clip, Sami stitched a People TikTok video that featured Charlie playing a game called “Phone a Friend,” in which the actor named the friend he would call when he needs a laugh, if he’s looking for a pep talk, and more.
Sami showed the clip of Charlie being asked, “Who do you call if you just need a laugh?”, before she chimed in, facing the camera.
“Hmm. I’m gonna say,” she said thoughtfully, before adding, “anyone but your daughter?” Sami then laughed as the brief clip ended.
Fans got an up-close look at Charlie and Sami’s strained dynamic earlier this year when Denise Richards and Her Wild Things aired on Bravo.
“So your dad wants to go to lunch,” Richards told daughter Lola in an April episode. “Sami’s not gonna go because she doesn’t want to. Your dad wants to see you.”
In a confessional, Sami confirmed, “I would rather do literally anything else than go to lunch with my father.”
Reflecting on her childhood during the show, Sami explained: “It goes in very big chunks with him, I think. For the first 13 years of my life, it was pretty bad and then we were OK for a couple of years. Now, it’s just, like, OK.”
The OnlyFans model also shared more about her father-daughter history during a March episode of Gia Giudice’s Casual Chaos podcast.
“My whole childhood, I want to say like the first 13 years, my dad was very in and out of my life,” Sami revealed. “It was the worst if we had an event and he said he was going to show up and then we wouldn’t hear from him or he would show up, like, 10 hours late. So we kind of just stopped asking him to come to stuff.”
Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards Reunite at Premiere for Netflix Doc – Click image to open gallery