Charlie Sheen is the latest celeb with a Netflix doco. But is there anything new to say?

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By Debi Enker

September 16, 2025 — 4.00pm

For a feverish period from the 1990s and into the aughts, Charlie Sheen – son of actor Martin Sheen and brother of actor Emilio Estevez – personified the classic Hollywood bad boy. A notorious party animal, voracious drug and alcohol user and big-spending client of high-priced sex workers, he was also one of the highest-paid actors in the world, pocketing almost $US2 million an episode for playing a hard-to-hate rascal on the hit comedy Two and a Half Men. As former co-star Jon Cryer puts it in a new two-part Netflix documentary about Sheen’s life, he was “an icon of decadence”.

Okay, tell me something I didn’t already know, you might say.

Actor Charlie Sheen in the documentary aka Charlie Sheen.

Fortunately, aka Charlie Sheen, produced and directed by Andrew Renzi (Paul American) manages to do that – particularly in one ugly, revealing section in the second part. In a savage indictment of the dark side of celebrity, it details how shamelessly and shamefully fame can be exploited.

Released alongside a new memoir from the star, Renzi’s portrait fulfils a fundamental requirement of a celebrity biopic: it illuminates aspects of the subject’s life that might not have been known or understood, and it offers a fresh perspective. That’s a requirement especially for a controversy-magnet like Sheen, whose existence appears to have been forensically examined and analysed over the years.

The celebrity biography is hardly an under-nourished area, but there’s been a notable influx to our streaming libraries over the past few years. Apple TV+ has delivered screen profiles of Billie Eilish, Michael J. Fox and Selena Gomez – with the latter (Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me) presenting a raw and revealing insight into her physical and mental struggles. And Netflix is the clear market leader with notable recent titles examining the lives of Pamela Anderson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lewis Capaldi, Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and David Beckham.

Pamela Anderson at a New York screening of Pamela, A Love Story, in 2023.

It’s worth noting that, in its own fashion, this is also what the ABC’s Australian Story has been doing for decades, with last month’s episode about singer Alex Lloyd a good example.

But nothing can quite rival the impact of the Netflix docuseries. In 2023, three years after The Last Dance, Beckham became an object of cultural fascination. The series explored the footballer’s career and personal life, revealing the pressures this softly spoken and fiercely focused golden boy faced when thrust into the spotlight, and how that all intensified after hooking up with a pop princess, the Spice Girls’ Victoria Adams, and becoming Britain’s pop-culture royalty.

The Emmy Award-winning series vividly evokes the early days of their reign in the ’90s: Britpop, the upbeat mood of the nation under Tony Blair’s New Labour government, the fashions. It’s also a love story about the enduring bond of a couple that’s weathered considerable challenges. Posh now has her own three-part series, Victoria Beckham, premiering on Netflix next month.

The four-part Beckham, produced by a company that the soccer star co-founded, is directed by Fisher Stevens who retained control over the final cut, explaining that he didn’t want to make “a puffy bio-piece”. That’s a reasonable concern as a biography can be an opportunity for subjects to present their account of their lives in their own way, running the risk of it becoming a PR exercise. On the other hand, it could mean the subject entrusting control to a documentary maker whose judgement they trust, which appears to be what Sheen has done.

In aka Charlie Sheen, Sheen is interviewed while seated in a booth in a classic-looking diner because, he explains at the outset, “If you walk into a diner with unrealistic expectations of what they have to offer, go f--- yourself.” He’s perhaps setting the scene for what’s to come: don’t expect too much, I’m still me. But Renzi’s production delivers more in a couple of significant ways.

Eight years sober, Sheen looks every one of his 59 years and also a lot like his dad. As the interview progresses, chronologically covering his childhood, family life, career, marriages and their breakdowns, Renzi can occasionally be heard asking a probing question – to clarify a statement or prompt an elaboration – and the director punctuates the answers with often-witty clips from Sheen’s films. He also cuts in some featuring his dad and brother Emilio – although they both chose not to participate in the production – plus pals like Sean Penn, who’s among the interviewees. These include Sheen’s brother, Ramon; his long-time best pal, Tony Todd; ex-wives Denise Richards and Brooke Mueller; Cryer; comedy producer Chuck Lorre; “Hollywood madam” Heidi Fleiss; and Sheen’s drug dealer, Marco.

Sheen says early on that he could imagine a story of his life divided into distinct chapters – “Partying”, “Partying with Problems” and “Problems”. Renzi uses those chapters, although he adds a postscript that’s disarming and unexpectedly affirming.

But before the chronology gets to that, the third act graphically exposes what Cryer has identified as a self-destructive pattern in his co-star’s behaviour, a tendency to sabotage his own success because he doesn’t feel that he deserves it. Following the cancellation of their comedy, Sheen’s worst tendencies, fuelled by his drug abuse, metastasised into a poisonous spectacle. Although the sitcom was still successful, Sheen’s erratic behaviour made it impossible for the show to go on.

So he really cut loose, embarking on an epic binge that included a tour in which he vented his spleen at those he believed had mistreated him. And a greedy public lapped it up: his social-media following exploded; his “Torpedoes of Truth” tour tickets sold; his maverick spirit – blithely biting the hand that fed him – was applauded. It was a freak show that Sheen now reflects upon with a “shame shiver” and one that highlights the worst tendencies of the time, and arguably those of today. Then came the inevitable crash and burn: the HIV and bipolar diagnoses, the lawsuits.

Renzi’s thoughtful fourth chapter, “Better Problems”, reveals what Mueller calls her ex’s time of making “living amends”. And when Sheen finally remarks, “The supporting players are more important in the story than myself (sic),” his observation might not be entirely honest, but it is surprisingly moving.

aka Charlie Sheen is on Netflix now.

For help with drug and alcohol addiction, contact the National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline on 1800 250 015.

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