SECRETS AND REGRETS
Charlie Sheen Regrets Not Using a Condom, and ‘Could Be Prosecuted’ For Hiding HIV Status
The star admitted in an interview that he hid his HIV status from sexual partners on two occasions. That may open him up to legal action.
Dylan Martinez / Reuters
Charlie Sheen could face a legal probe after he admitted in an interview with Matt Lauer on Tuesday that he did not disclose his HIV-positive status to two of his sexual partners.
The troubled and unpredictable star who has had long running battles with alcoholism and sex addiction said, after making the unguarded admission, that he was seeking to protect himself from being extorted by the partners.
Lauer succesfully probed Sheen about whether he’d told the truth in previous statements in which he claimed he had told his partners about his HIV status.
Sheen replied: “There [were] two examples, but protection was always in place, and it was for the right reasons, because everyone I had told up to that moment had shaken me down. [The lawsuits] are baseless.”
The admission could open Sheen up to big trouble.
California law is clear on the issue, stating: “Any person afflicted with any contagious, infectious, or communicable disease who willfully exposes him/herself to another person (and any person who willfully exposes another person afflicted with the disease to someone else) is guilty of a misdemeanor.”
Sheen was also aked about whther he had any regrets in connection with his behavior.
“I regret not using a condom the one or two times when this whole thing happened. I regret ruining Two and a Half Men. I regret not being more involved in my children's lives growing up, which I am now,” Sheen said, “That's about it.”
Sheen’s admission isn’t enough to move any potential investigation forward. Radar says that authorities still need the women involved to come forward.
The actor is on an experimental treatment as part of a U.S. clinical trial of an HIV drug that’s injected once a week and replaces a cocktail of pills.