It was only about a week ago that the news cycle finally caught up with news that the once highest paid actor on television already knew, as Charlie Sheen's HIV positive status was first reported - and now, the Golden Globe winner has confirmed he's in fact struggling with the virus.
After it was first reported that a Hollywood "womanizer" had been diagnosed with the virus that leads to AIDS (which has been responsible for the deaths of stars like Liberace, Freddie Mercury and Hollywood legend Rock Hudson), a day ahead of the official Charlie Sheen HIV confession, his health status had already been reported in the media.
According to BBC, it's been roughly four years since the actor first got Charlie Sheen's HIV diagnosis, from around the time of the public meltdown that led to his departure from hit sitcom "Two and a Half Men" before being replaced by Ashton Kutcher - and in that time, the star has spent "millions" trying to silence those who knew about the virus being in his body.
Sheen insists his HIV diagnosis had nothing to do with the meltdown, saying his spat with Chuck Lorre was mostly due to "'roid rage."
50 year-old Sheen told Matt Lauer on the "Today" show that he had suffered from "blackmail and extortion" from those in his inner circle he had trusted Charlie Sheen's HIV diagnosis, so he bribed them into keeping quiet.
"I think that I release myself from this prison today," The New York Times quotes the actor as saying during his confession, having stepped out to speak because he'd been paying people to keep it quiet for a while.
Still, Sheen doesn't know how he contracted the disease, explaining that he was "doing a lot of drugs" and "drinking too much" at the time of his diagnosis, which prompted bad decisions on his part.
According to Yahoo! News, the "Platoon" star is currently on a "triple cocktail" of pills to manage Charlie Sheen's HIV, and the virus' levels in his body are very low - though his doctors are concerned that his ongoing battle with depression and substance abuse could prompt him to quit taking his meds.
