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Charlie Sheen - Source: Twitter -
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Carlos Estevez has become a very popular man lately - the subject of global adulation and hero worship.
More than a million people have started following him on Twitter, hanging off his every nonsensical word.
The media (yes, that's me) have delighted in cutting up sound bites from his increasingly mad interviews.
People everywhere, myself included, have taken to quoting these sound bites. Poetic gems like, "I'm on a drug, it's called Charlie Sheen."
"I'm not bi-polar, I'm by-winning. I win here and I win there."
And of course, "tiger blood" which he has made several references to - claiming it's what separates him from the rest of us mere mortals.
It's all been highly entertaining. But there's a far less funny side to this saga, one that few people have bothered to raise.
In the midst of our fascination and delight (not dissimilar to the way we once watched Britney Spears spiral into a world of hysterical despair) we have conveniently white washed Sheen's history and bought into his self-proclaimed PR campaign.
So here are the facts.
Charlie Sheen is a drug and alcohol addict who hits women and actively promotes and participates in the illegal sex industry.
He has a history of violence against women, which stems back long before Brooke Mueller entered the picture.
In December 1996, Sheen was arrested and charged with attacking his girlfriend. He pled no contest to the charge and was placed on two years' probation.
Six years earlier, his engagement to Kelly Preston (yes, now Mrs John Travolta) was called off not long after he shot her in the arm. It was accidental, apparently.
In 2005 Denise Richards divorced Sheen and filed a restraining order against him after he threatened to kill her.
His third wife Brooke Mueller has made similar allegations against him - and in 2009 he was charged with felony menacing, third-degree assault and criminal mischief.
And most recently, escort Capri Anderson alleged Sheen put his hands around her throat and threatened her in a New York hotel room last year.
During his recent media frenzy, several journalists have asked him about his violent tendencies. It's the one question he doesn't have a snappy answer for. He simply refuses to answer it.
Sheen may have taken to ranting about how he can "handle" his drugs - because of his invincible tiger blood. But he still managed to overdose in 1998 when he injected himself with cocaine.
Dying is for fools. And Sheen came pretty close to looking damn foolish.
As for the illegal sex trade - because prostitution is still illegal in America - Sheen has long been vocal about his love of porn stars and hookers.
In 1995, he was named as a client of the infamous Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss. In video testimony, he acknowledged having spent more than $50,000 on sex services in a single year.
Charlie Sheen is, by all counts, a charming and affable man. He knows how to win public and private favour. It's one of the main reasons his career continued to thrive while he was feeding a vicious and voracious drug habit.
(That and the fact Hollywood is happy to turn a blind eye to domestic violence and drug abuse, as long as they keep making money...)
But let's not get carried away by the tiger blood and Adonis DNA, to use his words.
By embracing and celebrating Sheen's hijinks, we not only condone his behaviour, we enable it. And I, for one, want no part in that.
Read more of Joanna Hunkin's articles.
