Charlie Sheen is opening up about the moment he was diagnosed HIV-positive.
In his new memoir, The Book of Sheen, out Tuesday, Sept. 9, the 60-year-old actor gets candid about his use of drugs, various sexual encounters and his health.
In 2015, Sheen publicly revealed that he had been diagnosed with the immunodeficiency virus roughly four years earlier after going to the hospital for headaches and night sweats, among other alarming symptoms.
“When [doctors] finally got to the bottom of it, and informed me I’d joined the luckless ranks of the hivvers — I didn’t say a word,” Sheen writes in his book, adding that he went through the five stages of grief and “stumbled onto a sixth.”
He explains, “As shocking and depressing as my new status was, number six was a feeling I wasn’t expecting: relief. The relief of knowing an entire discipline of high-tech medicine was at my disposal to drive that bastard into submission.”
By the time Sheen had sat down with Matt Lauer on Today, he was already taking a medication that would make him undetectable, meaning that he would not be able to pass the virus onto others if he regularly takes his medication.
“Mom was with me the entire time at the hospital, as was my dear pal Steph M,” Sheen writes in his memoir. “They were both amazing to say the very least, and as much as they applauded the brave face I insisted on wearing, they had even more love for the one it kept replacing. As the days crept forward, the haze began to lift.”
Related: Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen Reunite on Red Carpet 19 Years After Divorce
When Sheen finally came to a place of acceptance and, as he writes, relief, “the sun felt brighter” and he was able to smile again.
While Sheen acknowledges that “in the long run it’ll probably knock a few years off my lifespan,” he says in The Book of Sheen, “I’ll take it.”
At the end of the chapter, Sheen says he has “no interest” in telling his side of the stories that prompted him to sit down with Lauer on Today.
Following Sheen’s interview on Today, a “Charlie Sheen effect” led to an increase in HIV prevention and testing.
The Book of Sheen is out now wherever books are sold.
Related: Charlie Sheen Shares Unfiltered Thoughts on Sobriety and Forgiveness Amid 60th Birthday
This story was originally reported by Parade on Sep 9, 2025, where it first appeared in the Celebs section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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