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Joe Rogan Experience #2378 - Charlie Sheen

Charlie Sheen is an actor best known for his leading roles in films such as "Platoon," "Wall Street," "Major League," and "Rooftop Killer," and television shows including "Spin City" (for which he won a Golden Globe Award) and "Two and a Half Men." His new book, "The Book of Sheen," is available now. He is featured in the Netflix documentary, "AKA Charlie Sheen," streaming now. Charlie has recently co-founded a new non-alcoholic beer brand called Wild AF, which will be available in October. Born Carlos Estevez, Sheen lives in Malibu, CA, where he grew up. https://www.charliesheenbook.com https://www.netflix.com/title/82024990 https://www.wildafbrewing.com https://PALEOVALLEY.COM/ROGAN OR ORDER ON AMAZON Don’t miss out on all the action - Download the DraftKings app today! Sign-up at https://dkng.co/rogan or with my promo code ROGAN. GAMBLING PROBLEM? CALL 1-800-GAMBLER, (800) 327-5050 or visit https://gamblinghelplinema.org (MA). Call 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Please Gamble Responsibly. 888-789-7777/visit https://ccpg.org (CT), or visit https://www.mdgamblinghelp.org (MD). 21+ and present in most states. (18+ DC/KY/NH/WY). Void in ONT/OR/NH. Eligibility restrictions apply. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino & Resort (KS). Fees may apply in IL. 1 per new customer. $5+ first-time bet req. Max. $200 issued as non-withdrawable Bonus Bets that expire in 7 days (168 hours). Stake removed from payout. Terms: https://sportsbook.draftkings.com/promos. Ends 9/29/25 at 11:59 PM ET. Sponsored by DK.

Charlie SheenguestJoe Roganhost
Sep 11, 20252h 51mWatch on YouTube ↗

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  1. 0:004:20

    Why red carpets feel like “radiation”: fame, photographers, and anxiety

    1. CS

      (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

    2. NA

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

    3. JR

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) Great to finally meet you, man.

    4. CS

      It's great to meet you. It's a trip and, and, uh, you know, walking in and I'm thinking, "Is there... How is it possible that our paths didn't cross-"

    5. JR

      I know, it's weird.

    6. CS

      "... all those years?" I mean, it's- it's- it's conceivable we were in the same venue, or the same building, or at the same party, or at least-

    7. JR

      Probably.

    8. CS

      ... something.

    9. JR

      I kind of avoided parties. I avoid basically everything. (laughs)

    10. CS

      (laughs)

    11. JR

      I avoided parties, I avoided, uh, premiers, any- anything where there was a red carpet. Uh, like even if I was in a movie, I wouldn't go on the red carpet, I'd go in through the back door.

    12. CS

      Seriously?

    13. JR

      Yeah, I don't like it.

    14. CS

      Wow. Wow.

    15. JR

      I don't like all the, that fucking, "Look over here. Look over here."

    16. CS

      Yeah.

    17. JR

      That is just-

    18. CS

      Yeah.

    19. JR

      ... too fake for me. It just, whatever allergy I have to that flares and I'm like, "I'm going in through the back door. Fuck this."

    20. CS

      Yeah. No, I don't, I don't blame you.

    21. JR

      I don't like it.

    22. CS

      I don't blame you. They, they stopped, um, uh, showing me where the back door was.

    23. JR

      (laughs)

    24. CS

      Because I- I- I support a similar, uh, (laughs) entrance thing. Um-

    25. JR

      It's just too weird.

    26. CS

      But it's that, it's, "Look over here. Look over here."

    27. JR

      Uh-huh.

    28. CS

      It's that thing. Something happens in that moment.

    29. JR

      Yeah.

    30. CS

      And I think it's like, it's, it, it brings you as close to possibly, uh, uh, sterilization-

  2. 4:206:06

    A 2011 tweet comes true: early JRE days, guests, and moving the show out of Joe’s house

    1. JR

      It's so odd. Yeah. What's really funny, at the, when I'm, when you first walked into the studio, you brought up a tweet that I had sent-

    2. CS

      (laughs)

    3. JR

      ... in 2011, and I think this was when you were going crazy.

    4. CS

      Yeah.

    5. JR

      And, uh, I think this was also when my friend, Russell Peters, was doing those tours with you.

    6. CS

      Oh, that's right, yeah.

    7. JR

      It said, "I need to get Charlie Sheen on my podcast. I know it's a long shot, but a boy could dream. Bet everybody knows him. Help me hook it up."

    8. CS

      Wow.

    9. JR

      Well, here we are-

    10. CS

      Wow.

    11. JR

      ... 14 years later.

    12. CS

      Yeah, you know, it takes what it takes, right?

    13. JR

      Yeah.

    14. CS

      Um-

    15. JR

      It's funny-

    16. CS

      Gosh.

    17. JR

      ... 'cause back then, I don't think, I had no guests.

    18. CS

      (laughs)

    19. JR

      I think I had, Anthony Bourdain was the only, like, real guest that I had had, uh-

    20. CS

      Seriously?

    21. JR

      ... by the time... Yeah, he was 2011 as well.

    22. CS

      Wow, and, and how many shows had you done by then?

    23. JR

      Not that many by then. I don't know.

    24. CS

      So, were you just doing solo shows, just like covering topics and talking to camera?

    25. JR

      I would do it mostly with my friends.

    26. CS

      Ah, okay.

    27. JR

      Mostly with other comics.

    28. CS

      Okay.

    29. JR

      We would just sit and talk shit and then eventually-

    30. CS

      At, at like your house or... Oh, okay.

  3. 6:068:45

    The ‘Winning’ era: when public celebration reinforced a real-life breakdown

    1. JR

      Yeah. Yeah. Um-... but we did it. We're here. That, those things that you did with Russell Peters were so fascinating. It was... The whole thing was so fascinating. I watched the Netflix thing. I watched the first episode, and, uh, the, the, the whole experience of watching the guy from Platoon, the guy that everybody knows, this is like this gigantic, super cool movie star, Hot Shots, all these different things, to watch you just- not just go off the rails with drugs, but like, be super open about it. You were like the first guy super open about it, you know? And everybody just embraced it. Instead of it being like, "Oh, Charlie Sheen's doing drugs. That's so sad." It was like, "We love him!"

    2. CS

      Keep going.

    3. JR

      It was kind of crazy.

    4. CS

      Keep going.

    5. JR

      All the tiger blood stuff, and winning. Everybody was saying winning all the time, and it, it-

    6. CS

      It was...

    7. JR

      What was that like for you? Was that like... Was it the worst kind of reinforcement? Or what, or did it let you-

    8. CS

      That's-

    9. JR

      Like, were you surprised by it?

    10. CS

      That's a great way to describe it. It was... It, it is, yeah, I, uh, the worst kind of reinforcement. Yeah.

    11. JR

      Yeah.

    12. CS

      It was like, uh, s- unintentionally or otherwise celebrating a d- the, the, the, the, a guy's demise.

    13. JR

      Right.

    14. CS

      You know? And, and, and I guess the, the, the train wreck was so spectacular that, or it was such a spectacle that they couldn't turn away. But they were also being invited in to, to follow it down the tracks.

    15. JR

      Yeah.

    16. CS

      You know? And, and, and somebody asked me about it, and, and, and I, you know, I don't know if I was the conductor or if I was riding the caboose or both simultaneously. Um, it was a trip, because thinking back on it, it's... You know, some of it just kind of exists in, in, uh, just Polaroid snapshots that kind of drift past through the mist, you know?

    17. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    18. CS

      Uh, other, other moments are in high def but kind of seen through a tunnel vision.

    19. JR

      Hmm.

    20. CS

      Like, and it, and, and it's... It was... Uh, there was an energy, or s- uh, it was... There was an energy I tapped into that felt like I was playing a role, but I couldn't figure out f- uh, wha- you know, what the movie, what the plot was.

    21. JR

      (laughs)

    22. CS

      Who my costars were. (laughs) Where somebody, you know... If somebody'd show up with a, like a jig- page one re-write.

    23. JR

      Right.

    24. CS

      That's what we fucking need, you know?

    25. JR

      Yeah.

    26. CS

      Um, and it, and it got away from me, and, and had it not been encouraged, I think it could've been curtailed. It could've been shut down a lot sooner. You know?

    27. JR

      Right. But you, you become kind of captured to the image.

    28. CS

      Yes.

    29. JR

      Yeah.

  4. 8:4516:42

    Cocaine + testosterone + rage: bullying behavior, TRT cream, and fallout with Chuck Lorre

    1. CS

      And there was something that, uh, just recently, something I stumbled onto. Um, it's, um... I was, I was... In, in some way, um, I was being a bully. It had a bullying kind of energy about it, you know? And I've never been that guy. Like, I-

    2. JR

      How so? How so, like bullying?

    3. CS

      The way I was attacking people, and the way I was challenging people.

    4. JR

      Oh.

    5. CS

      I was like the tough guy on the block, and had all these soldiers. I had this whole cadre behind me, and it was like, you know, inviting people into the ring. I've never been in the ring. What are we doing? You know? (laughs)

    6. JR

      (laughs)

    7. CS

      (laughs)

    8. JR

      You're on coke. (laughs)

    9. CS

      (laughs) Yeah. I'm on, I'm on-

    10. JR

      That's what it is. It's total cocaine behavior.

    11. CS

      Among other things. Um, yeah, and, and I think, um, it, there was a whole testosterone component as well-

    12. JR

      Hmm.

    13. CS

      ... that was, um, out of hand, just out of control. Because there's... You know, what do they recommend? Like, a quarter-sized dollop in, like every other day, and... No. Uh, I, there's a line in the book where I say, "I was s- I was slathering that, that shit on like a fucking Ponds commercial."

    14. JR

      Oh, so you were using the cream?

    15. CS

      Yeah.

    16. JR

      Yeah.

    17. CS

      Yeah. Which is hard to measure.

    18. JR

      It's not just hard to measure, it gets on other people.

    19. CS

      Oh.

    20. JR

      I read this story about this guy who was on TRT Cream, and his child started like showing signs of, uh, premature development.

    21. CS

      Oh.

    22. JR

      And they realized that this kid's testosterone level was through the roof because it's through the dermis, right? It's through the skin.

    23. CS

      Right, right, right.

    24. JR

      So he's getting it on his arms, and then he's hugging his child-

    25. CS

      Hugging, wow.

    26. JR

      ... and the kid is getting juiced.

    27. CS

      Like, what were the kid's numbers? Do we know?

    28. JR

      We don't know.

    29. CS

      Like into seven, eight hundreds? Or...

    30. JR

      I don't think they released that, but-

  5. 16:4224:08

    Losing your train of thought: memory, false memories, and why eyewitnesses get it wrong

    1. CS

      Can I just get a tissue, do you mind?

    2. JR

      Yeah, sure, sure, sure.

    3. NA

      Uh-

    4. JR

      Jimmy, you got a box?

    5. CS

      Awesome, thank you. Sorry, I'm just-

    6. JR

      No worries. Getting sweaty? Is it hot in here? We can turn the AC on.

    7. CS

      No, I'll tell you exactly what happened. I got, I f- lost that thought, and then I tried to cover, and then I realized, "This is a, he's not buying this," and then I started sweating.

    8. JR

      (laughs)

    9. CS

      And I started fucking sweating. So I'm just gonna (laughs) -

    10. JR

      No, it's normal, man.

    11. CS

      ... lose control. Sorry, man.

    12. JR

      Just say you lost your thought. It's all good.

    13. CS

      Yeah.

    14. JR

      It happens all the time. It happens to me too.

    15. CS

      (laughs) Why is that though? Is our brain already trying to figure out the next thing that's going to attach to it, and by doing so, it took that, the main thing and just dismissed it?

    16. JR

      (clicks tongue) Perhaps.

    17. CS

      Okay.

    18. JR

      It's also brains are just not that good.

    19. CS

      Huh.

    20. JR

      You know?

    21. CS

      (laughs)

    22. JR

      They're, they're pretty good compared to chimp- panzees and dogs-

    23. CS

      Right.

    24. JR

      ... and stuff like that.

    25. CS

      Right.

    26. JR

      But, you know, they have a lot of issues.

    27. CS

      Okay.

    28. JR

      Just like when you were talking about your memories. Like, my me- all, my memories of my whole life are like a series of blurry snapshots that I can go, "Oh, yeah, and then we went there. Oh, yeah, that happened."

    29. CS

      Right.

    30. JR

      "Oh, yeah."

  6. 24:0827:14

    Pre-internet superstardom and the fear of being alone with your thoughts

    1. JR

      Yeah. That was a wild time where you could get phone calls. That's the other thing is, like, you got famous before the internet, too.

    2. NA

      ... which is a different world. It's a different world, 'cause there's not that many of you. There's way less famous people. There's way more famous people now.

    3. CS

      Yeah.

    4. NA

      You got famous, like super duper famous, at 21 years old with no internet.

    5. CS

      Trip out. Yeah, I know.

    6. NA

      (laughs)

    7. CS

      (laughs)

    8. NA

      How does anybody expect you to come out normal? Jesus Christ.

    9. CS

      And, and, and, and it's... And you try... You can't really even explain to someone that, that, that, that wasn't around during all that. You can't really explain what it felt like, 'cause they, they look at it as the things that were missing. And, and there, there wasn't anything missing, you know?

    10. NA

      Right, right.

    11. CS

      It was about having to really be engaged in everything you were doing, you know? You had to show up to, to, to, to, y- you know, uh, to gain... T- t- to get a like, you had to enter the building, you know?

    12. NA

      Right, right, right.

    13. CS

      You had to go to a... on a talk show. You had to attend a junket. You... You know what I'm saying?

    14. NA

      Mm-hmm.

    15. CS

      And you couldn't... And nobody knew... Nobody knew what the behind-the-scenes of your movie looked like until, you know, years later on the DVD feature or, or the VHS feature-

    16. NA

      Right.

    17. CS

      ... that they finally saw some of that stuff, you know?

    18. NA

      Yeah.

    19. CS

      It wasn't, it wasn't a- all, all-access 24/7, 365, you know?

    20. NA

      And for some people, they can't leave it alone. They, they have to live stream during the day. They're live-streaming from their trailer. They're live-streaming on... in their car on the way home. They're like...

    21. CS

      Yeah, what is that about?

    22. NA

      They're nuts. They're just locked into this weird new world that we're living in.

    23. CS

      But is it... I mean, is it because there's genuinely people that are tuning in with enthusiasm, that are looking forward to that live stream in the car ride home? Or because the person f- or, or is it a combination?

    24. NA

      I think it's those things, and it's also that thing that you said that you didn't ever get, they're scared of. You didn't ever get alone time.

    25. CS

      Mm.

    26. NA

      Just, just time to decompress and think.

    27. CS

      Interesting.

    28. NA

      Just be by yourself. No phone, no TV. Just fucking sit on the couch and just, like, catch, catch your breath.

    29. CS

      Right.

    30. NA

      And they don't want that. That's... They're scared of that-

  7. 27:1431:04

    Getting ‘Platoon’: why the script didn’t look like a masterpiece—and how Oliver Stone shot it

    1. NA

      It's normal. It's normal. When you, um... When you first got Platoon, did you have any idea, like, what the fuck was gonna happen?

    2. CS

      I didn't. I didn't.

    3. NA

      Is that... For, for people today, to, to understand how big that movie was, 'cause it was... it was one of the very first realistic war movies. And, I think very importantly, it was done by Oliver Stone, who was actually a veteran of the Vietnam War. You remembering what you wrote down? What you, uh...

    4. CS

      Just that, that piece, yeah.

    5. NA

      (laughs)

    6. CS

      I'm not, I'm not, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna forget it again.

    7. NA

      Okay.

    8. CS

      Pardon. Sorry.

    9. NA

      But that... It was... it was a different kind of war movie, you know?

    10. CS

      Yeah, it, um-

    11. NA

      Much in the lines of your dad's movie.

    12. CS

      Yeah.

    13. NA

      You know? And that, that was a very different kind of war movie as well.

    14. CS

      Yeah, Apocalypse from-

    15. NA

      Mm-hmm.

    16. CS

      ... here, Platoon, you know, boots on the ground.

    17. NA

      Mm-hmm.

    18. CS

      Um, the script didn't read like it was going to be a masterpiece. The, the script read, um, like a, like a... k- kind of like a docudrama, sort of movie-of-the-week. It didn't-

    19. NA

      Hmm.

    20. CS

      Didn't read that script and say, "Oh, wow. Okay, yeah, this is the one. People are gonna really... Wow, they're gonna worship this thing." It didn't... The dialogue was very clipped and very, um, very specific. Um, it, it... You kind of never really knew where you were in the script, in the scene descriptions, you know?

    21. NA

      Hmm.

    22. CS

      I- i- the script was so lean. I think it was, like, barely 100 pages.

    23. NA

      Really?

    24. CS

      Yeah. Um, so... But it, it... I, I, I didn't realize sort of, um, what, what we were doing until we were actually doing it. Usually I can read a scene and get a sense of, you know, what my responsibilities are gonna be or how we're gonna break it down, or at least, you know, how, how I'm gonna see it on the screen. And I couldn't, I couldn't do that with Platoon, because all the terrain, all the scenes, everything kind of felt very similar, you know?

    25. NA

      Really?

    26. CS

      Yeah, and the original title was The Platoon.

    27. NA

      Hmm.

    28. CS

      You think it's a- as big a hit if he keeps the "the"?

    29. NA

      Yeah, I don't think it matters.

    30. CS

      (laughs)

  8. 31:0439:58

    JFK assassination deep dive: autopsies, the ‘magic bullet,’ and Dealey Plaza logistics

    1. JR

      We got so heavy into the JFK assassination-

    2. CS

      I don't... I don't got it.

    3. JR

      ... we hardly covered anything else. (coughs) Especially the last time he was on. The last time he was on was when they were doing that Showtime JFK document- It was a Showtime thing, right? Wasn't it? The sh-

    4. CS

      I think it was, yeah. Yeah.

    5. JR

      Where there was a multi-part-

    6. CS

      Yeah, I saw it.

    7. JR

      ... piece that he put together.

    8. CS

      I saw it. Yeah.

    9. JR

      His recall is insane. It's insane.

    10. CS

      It is. Yeah.

    11. JR

      You have a conversation with him, he's pulling up dates, he's got no bo- I mean, how old is Oliver at this point in time?

    12. CS

      Um, upper 70s? I just turned 60, so if he was in-

    13. JR

      78.

    14. CS

      He's 78. Okay, okay.

    15. JR

      He's 78 years old, rock solid memory. I mean, rock solid.

    16. CS

      Wow.

    17. JR

      The dude was just pulling up dates and names, and Allen Dulles did this-

    18. CS

      Wow.

    19. JR

      And Harry A- Well, it was just like... The, the entire Warren Commission report, he's like citing different passages in it and tells... It's, it's bananas.

    20. CS

      That's deep. That's deep. Yeah. Wow. D- Has he landed on like what... Uh, can he, can he point to or, or is it... Is it, is it several factors?

    21. JR

      More than anybody can point to, but there's a lot of people that wanted him dead. And for sure, there was a lot of fuckery going on with the Warren Commission, for sure.

    22. CS

      Right, right, right.

    23. JR

      There's a lot of nonsense with the autopsies, there's a lot of nonsense with the single bullet going through both him and Connally, and leaving more bullet fragments in Connally's wrist than that magic bullet was missing, the one they found.

    24. CS

      Right, right, right. Yeah.

    25. JR

      It's like bullshit. The story is filled with bullshit.

    26. CS

      Yeah, yeah.

    27. JR

      And no one really knew how much bullshit it was until, um, they had that video that they played of the Zapruder film on the Geraldo Rivera Show-

    28. CS

      Yeah.

    29. JR

      ... when Dick Gregory came on and... Who was a comedian, which is pretty wild, came on and had the footage of the Kennedy assassination. Everybody sees Kennedy's head go back and to the left and you're like-

    30. CS

      Right. (slaps table)

  9. 39:581:00:01

    ‘Chaos’ and MKUltra: Manson as a government-linked PSYOP—and how conspiracies get buried

    1. CS

      I actually read Chaos before it got all the attention.

    2. JR

      Really?

    3. CS

      Yeah. Um, friend of mine gave it to me, and I was ... and I went, "All right, I'll, I'll read a couple pages." And I was like, "Oh."

    4. JR

      Yeah.

    5. CS

      "Oh, okay."

    6. JR

      "This is good."

    7. CS

      "This is ... This is ..." Yeah.

    8. JR

      This is one of the best books.

    9. CS

      This is, this is different take.

    10. JR

      Yeah.

    11. CS

      But I'm curious how you felt about the documentary they did about it.

    12. JR

      I didn't watch it.

    13. CS

      Okay. I-

    14. JR

      I thought it was gonna be too quick. 90 minutes I didn't think was, like, enough time. It's only 90 minutes, right? Something like that.

    15. CS

      I thought it was the first episode.

    16. JR

      Oh, you thought there was gonna be more.

    17. CS

      So I watched it sort of like a data gathering thing-

    18. JR

      Yeah.

    19. CS

      ... that you usually do with the first episode-

    20. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    21. CS

      ... and kind of just seeing where the ... what the director's doing and what kind of stuff they're laying out early.

    22. JR

      Yeah.

    23. CS

      So, and then when it ended and I didn't see that second-

    24. JR

      Right.

    25. CS

      ... episode with the timer, right?

    26. JR

      Uh-huh.

    27. CS

      And I was, "Oh, that's ..." And I thought it was a complete, uh ... I th- thought it d- radically underserved the book.

    28. JR

      Yeah, maybe they could try again (laughs) . They need to ... That needs to be like an eight-part, two-hour a piece series.

    29. CS

      Thank you.

    30. JR

      Yeah.

  10. 1:00:011:19:06

    OJ verdict shockwaves and the North Hollywood shootout: public spectacle and violence on live TV

    1. CS

      You know? Right? That's, that's how my dad described the OJ case.

    2. JR

      Oh.

    3. CS

      He said, "This is like the greatest parlor game ever."

    4. JR

      Right.

    5. CS

      You know?

    6. JR

      Boy, I remember watching that verdict on TV live in my apartment with this girl I was dating. She was a really sweet girl, and she couldn't believe that he was innocent.

    7. CS

      Yeah.

    8. JR

      And she didn't understand it. She was so confused.

    9. CS

      Yeah, it didn't line up, did it? Didn't line up.

    10. JR

      She was, she was like, "No. No. How?"

    11. CS

      Yeah.

    12. JR

      She just kept, she kept like putting her hands over her face, "No. No."

    13. CS

      It, it, it completely torqued her, her whole reality.

    14. JR

      Yeah.

    15. CS

      Yeah. I was on a, on a mountaintop in Mexico doing a, uh, k- kind of a, uh, uh, you know, low-rent sci-fi film called The Arrival.

    16. JR

      I love that movie.

    17. CS

      Oh, okay.

    18. JR

      Don't say that was a low-rent movie.

    19. CS

      (laughs)

    20. JR

      I love that movie.

    21. CS

      Thank you.

    22. JR

      You know who turned me onto that movie? Dave Foley. Dave Foley, who's a good friend of mine from, uh, News Radio.

    23. CS

      Okay.

    24. JR

      Uh, when we were on News Radio together, he fucking loved that movie.

    25. CS

      (laughs) That's funny.

    26. JR

      He goes, "This is a so underrated sci-fi movie." I'm like, "Okay, cool."

    27. CS

      Wow.

    28. JR

      And I checked it out, and it was great.

    29. CS

      The one-

    30. JR

      I loved it.

Episode duration: 2:51:45

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