Charlie Sheen’s former Two and a Half Men co-star Jon Cryer has opened up about earning significantly less than him on their hit sitcom.
In a new Netflix documentary, titled aka Charlie Sheen, the 60-year-old actor said he earned one third of Sheen’s salary.
Per Forbes, 60-year-old Sheen was earning $1.9 million per episode at the show’s peak. Meanwhile, Cryer made only $620,000 per episode, as claimed by The Hollywood Reporter.
That is a massive difference.
Cryer detailed how he felt about the pay discrepancy.
‘He’s in the midst of falling apart in every way that I can imagine, and he’s renegotiating his contract for another year of a show that I’m supposed to be on, too,’ he said, according to an account from People.
He went on to compare his troubled co-star — who was eventually dismissed from the show amid personal struggles — to a dictator.
Charlie Sheen’s former Two and a Half Men co-star Jon Cryer has opened up about earning significantly less than him on their hit sitcom; Cryer pictured in March
L-R Sheen, Cryer, and Angus T. Jones pictured on the sitcom in 2003
Cryer stated: ‘The dictator of North Korea was a guy named Kim Jong-Il. He acted crazy all the time and thus got enormous amounts of aid from countries who were so scared of him that they would shovel money at him.
‘Well, that’s what happened here. [Sheen’s] negotiations went off the charts because his life was falling apart. Me, whose life was pretty good at that time, I got a third of that.’
He also revealed that the show’s network, CBS, had motive to ‘spend this astonishing amount of money on Charlie’ because it has ‘pre-sold a couple extra seasons’ of the series.
However, Sheen was let go from the television comedy in 2011 after he publicly criticized show creator Chuck Lorre.
He said about his departure in the Netflix project, ‘I remember saying, “Dude, I dunno man. I’m feeling emotionally done there. And I get there’s a ton of money at stake, and I get there’s a lot more juice to be squeezed out of this thing, but I don’t know how much juice is left in me. And I do fear if I go back, it’s gonna go terribly wrong.” I said those words.’
Following the Wall Street star’s exit, Ashton Kutcher stepped in to replace him for four seasons until the show’s end in 2015.
Sheen’s memoir The Book of Sheen: A Memoir, coincided with his documentary release, which premiered on September 10.
Sheen’s 21-year-old daughter Sami, whom he shares with ex-wife Denise Richards, had an emotional reaction to the tell-all.
In a new Netflix documentary, titled aka Charlie Sheen, Cryer detailed how he felt about the pay discrepancy; Sheen pictured at the documentary premiere on September 4
Sheen was let go from the television comedy in 2011 after he publicly criticized show creator Chuck Lorre; Sheen, Jones, and Cryer pictured in 2009
Sheen’s 21-year-old daughter Sami, whom he shares with ex-wife Denise Richards, is a main reason he got sober
She said in a social media post that what surprised her the most is that her father said he gave up alcohol and drugs for her.
‘I didn’t know I was the reason he got sober,’ the Only Fans creator said in a TikTok video.
The actor wrote in his book, ‘It was December 10, 2017, and by 9am I was on my third Macallan-spiked coffee.
‘My phone rang and when I picked up, it was my daughter Sam asking what time we were leaving.
‘S***; her appointment that day had slipped my mind. I’ve never mixed the cups with the wheel, so I called Tony T. to come bail me out of a situation he was all too familiar with. There’s reliable and then there’s that dood.’
In addition to Sami, the Hollywood veteran also shares 20-year-old daughter Lola Sheen with Richards.
He’s also dad to 16-year-old twins Bob and Max Sheen, whom he shares with ex-wife Brooke Mueller, and 40-year-old daughter Cassandra Estevez, whom he shares with high school girlfriend Paula Profit.
