After telegraphing for weeks that he planned to sue over the suspension and then cancelation of his acting role on “Two and a Half Men,” Charlie Sheen has now done so. He’s seeking $100 million from Warner Bros. Television and show creator Chuck Lorre, plus punitive damages.
As has been the case in recent weeks, Sheen and his lawyer, Marty Singer, selected the celebrity scandal website TMZ as the outlet to release the latest development.
According to the lawsuit filed Thursday (3/10) in a California Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, the cancellation of the last eight episodes of the hit CBS series for this season was not due to Sheen’s behavior, but rather an effort by Lorre “to take money away from the dedicated cast and crew” of the series “in order to serve his own ego and self-interest, and make the star of the Series the scapegoat for Lorre’s own conduct.”
The lawsuit claims that Sheen and the rest of the cast and crew made billions of dollars for Warner Bros. and Lorre, but that Lorre decided to punish Sheen because the actor criticized him for not writing the scripts to complete the season. “Because of his financial leverage with Warner Bros. and CBS by having two other profitable series with them, Lorre convinced Warner Bros. to conspire with him and attribute the suspension of the Series and termination of Mr. Sheen’s contract on Mr. Sheen’s alleged statements, conduct and condition, despite the fact that Mr. sheen is in compliance with his contract and ready, willing and able to proceed,” the suit claimed.
RBR-TVBR observation: We’re not lawyers, but don’t you have to use real, legal names in a lawsuit, even in Hollywood? In this case, one of the plaintiffs and one of the defendants is identified by a stage name.
What’s next? No doubt Warner Bros. will have its lawyers file to have the case thrown out, arguing that the contract requires arbitration and can’t be tried in a court at this point.
