Denise Richards Said Charlie Sheen Would Be ‘Crazy’ To Pass Up THIS Role

Actress Denise Richards is revealing that she actually pushed Charlie Sheen to take on one of his most famous roles.

Although he has been known for his roles in “Platoon” and “Wall Street,” the actor is probably best known for his role as Charlie Harper in the CBS sitcom “Two and a Half Men,” which ran from September 2003 to February 2015.

In the latest episode of the “Just B with Bethenny Frankel” podcast, Denise Richards claimed that she was the one who convinced Charlie Sheen to take on the role of Charlie Harper in the Chuck Lorre-created sitcom.

“He got Two and a Half Men while I was pregnant [with daughter Sami Sheen]," Denise said in comments transcribed by People magazine. "He was nervous about starting a new TV show after Spin City got canceled. By the way, I read the script for [Two and a Half Men] and said, 'You have to do this show.'"

"He was going to do a different show,” she added. “And I read the script and I go, 'You're crazy for not doing this.'"

Charlie went to be part of the show’s cast for eight seasons – from 2003 to 2011. During his time on the show, he earned two Golden Globe nominations and four Emmy nominations. However, he left the series in March 2011 following a very public fallout from creator Chuck Lorre.

In the show’s ninth season, it was explained that his character was killed off after having been struck by a train in Paris while on vacation. Charlie’s ghost, portrayed by Kathy Bates, returned to the show in the form of a hallucination, revealing that she was trapped in h--- and stuck in a woman’s body.

Although “The Rookie” actor struggled with his alcohol and drug abuse, the “Wild Things” star claimed that the popularity of the show did have an impact on his sobriety. "I think because [of] the success of Two and a Half Men and the money, I think that led to him getting back into not being sober,” she told host Bethenny Frankel. "All I know is he was no longer the person that I married and no longer sober."

Denise was six months pregnant with their second daughter, Lola, when she filed for divorce in 2006. "It wasn't like I moved out and we had a little separation,” she recalled. "When I filed, basically [Sheen] went to work, I packed a suitcase and took our daughter [Sami], who is not even one, and went to the Beverly Hills Hotel. I went to file for divorce and then went to a fitting for a pilot I was doing.”

Denise went on to say that her parents had been “very supportive” of the former couple’s marriage, as Charlie had been sober when they met. She said that the person that she married “was very different than what the public saw when he spiraled after all that stuff...when he was fired [from Two and a Half Men].”

After Charlie was fired and replaced by Ashton Kutcher, the actor decided to get sober. During a 2019 interview on ITV’s Loose Women, he admitted that it was hard to look back at some of the previous comments that he made, particularly towards series creator Chuck Lorre.

“It feels awful. I can’t sit there and lie to you,” he said. “Some of it is very surreal. To this day, I am not sure how I created such chaos and wound up in that headspace. It’s as though there was some alien or demonic possession going on.”

Two years later, in February 2021, he again expressed regret for the way that he acted. "There were 55 different ways for me to handle that situation, and I chose number 56," he told Yahoo! Entertainment. "And so, you know, I think the growth for me post-meltdown or melt forward or melt somewhere — however you want to label it — it has to start with absolute ownership of my role in all of it."

Fortunately, Charlie Sheen and Chuck Lorre have recently made amends almost twelve years later. They are collaborating on a new series together called “How To Be A Bookie.”