14 DAY TRIAL // Actor Charlie Sheen has offered to pay part of the salaries of the crew working on the hit series “Two and a Half Men” while he’s getting treatment for his drugs and alcohol issues. However, he’ll only do it if the network pays the rest.
As we also noted last week, producers on the hit show are said to be very upset about the situation on set right now: about 300 staffers working on it will be left without a paycheck while Sheen is seeking help for his problems.
While the actor can certainly go for a while without the $2 million per episode he makes, the staffers can’t go without a paycheck for up to a month, as he completes treatment.
Last time word of this got out, producers were thinking of ways to solve the problem, but Charlie seems to have gotten there ahead of them: according to TMZ, he offered to cover part of the expenses.
“Charlie Sheen has notified members of the ‘Two and a Half Men’ crew that he will pay a portion of their salaries for the two weeks the show has been down... if CBS and Warner Bros. agree to pay the remaining portion,” TMZ reports.
Sheen has reportedly told the crew that he’d be back next week to wrap up the current season, even if he wouldn’t be done with his treatment yet, because he didn’t want his personal problems to affect them anymore.
“We’re told Charlie is upset that Warner Bros. and show creator Chuck Lorre have not offered to pay the crew for the downtime, so he’s made an offer to pay 1/3 of the crew salaries if Warner Bros. and CBS each pay 1/3 as well,” TMZ says.
If this is true, he must have forgotten to notify the network as well – because they’re telling TMZ this is the first time they hear of this offer.
“A CBS exec tells TMZ no one on the show is ready to go back to work on Monday. We’re told under the best of circumstances the show will come back at the end of the month, assuming Charlie can handle it,” the aforementioned e-zine writes.
“And the CBS exec adds, no one has asked the network to pay 1/3 of the crew salaries for the downtime,” TMZ also says.