Actor Charlie Sheen revealed on NBC's Today show on Tuesday that he is HIV positive after so much speculation running around Hollywood.
"I am here to admit that I am in fact HIV positive and I have to put a stop to this onslaught, this barrage of attacks, of sub-truths," Charlie Sheen told Matt Lauer on Today show (via The Guardian).
The former "Two and A Half Men" star revealed that to keep his illness from going public, he paid millions to people to keep his secret; only to regret that the "truth became treason." Charlie Sheen told Matt Lauer in the exclusive interview that the friends he told about his HIV positive status blackmailed him and extorted money from him and calls them a "circle of deceit."
"I trusted them, they were in my inner circle and thought they could be helpful. My trust turned to their treason," Sheen said. He shared that a prostitute threatened to sell to news publications a picture of him in medication.
Charlie Sheen said that telling the world that he is HIV positive is like releasing himself from the prison of blackmail and extortion.
"It's a hard three letters to absorb," said Sheen about the HIV, which according to him, he acquired four years ago. He said that he has no idea how he contracted the virus and further said that he does not feel any stigma attached to the illness. He also admitted that he regretted having "fathomless drinking" and substance abuse" after he knew he was HIV positive and confirmed that it was "impossible" that he would have passed the HIV to other people.
"It started with a series of cluster headaches and sweating-I was hospitalized I thought I had a brain tumor-after tests they said this was the situation," Sheen shared about the time before he was diagnosed to be HIV positive.
He also shared that right now, he feels he has the responsibility to make himself better so he could help a lot of other people. "With what we're doing today, others may come up and say 'thanks Charlie, thanks for kicking the door open,'" he said (via BBC).
