How Many Chances Does Charlie Sheen Get?

Charlie Sheen just can't seem to leave well enough alone. Just when people were starting to let the porn star locked in the hotel bathroom incident slip from their minds the "Two and a Half Men" star checks himself into rehab. This will be the second trip to rehab in less than a year for Sheen, and comes in the middle of divorce proceedings from his third wife. Yet despite all of the wild antics and the negative press, none of it seems to have stalled Sheen's career or the popularity of his television show.

As a general rule an actor with a well documented history of substance abuse and/or general scrapes with the law has only one of two career paths. The first choice is for the actor to clean up, get sober and convince the world at large that they've become a better person. This is of course never an easy thing to do, and often takes years. However it can pay off hugely, Robert Downey Jr being probably the best example in the modern times. The other path is to simply stay the course of self destruction which will lead to a career meltdown. If an actor refuses to seek help and clean up then it's only a matter of time before both audiences and Hollywood abandons them. The general public, though thirsty for gossip, can quickly tire of an actor who can't stay out of the headlines. And Hollywood will simply begin to see actors like this as a liability, not worth having on set. The downfall of Lindsay Lohan stands as the most glaring recent example.

Somehow, against all odds Charlie Sheen has been able to maintain a strong career yet has never been able to stay clean and out of trouble for very long. It seems to defy all logic that Sheen can't shake his bad boy tendencies, even now well into his 40s, yet he's able to continue to secure regular and high profile work. Something about Sheen's charm seems to override his bad behavior with general audiences. Despite multiple brushes with the law for everything from soliciting prostitutes to drugs to even assault Sheen still seems to be able to flash a devilish smile and be on his way.

Sheen's brushes with the law started early, the first incident of note being in 1990 with the shooting of his then girlfriend in the arm (this was found to be accidental.) More famously Sheen was revealed as a client of Hollywood brothel madam Heidi Fleiss in 1995. The there's the cocaine overdose in 1998, the accusations of abuse and drug use by his ex-wife Denise Richards in 2005 and now this latest string of incidents. Nearly any other actor would have been kicked to the curb by both Hollywood and the general public by now. Yet CBS has seems to have never even considered the possibility of cutting their star loose and the ratings on "Two and Half Men" have never faltered. The show has always ranked in the top 20 shows in overall ratings.

So how does he get away with it? There's probably a few factors. The first is that Sheen's bad boy antics aren't in contrast with the public perception of him. Probably the main reason that Lindsay Lohan suffered so badly from her partying ways was that she came out of Disney movies and was expected to be a role model. Charlie Sheen, even though he started acting at a young age, has never been held up as a role model and has always been perceived as a bad boy. Therefore his actions serve only to reinforce his image rather than undermine it. This means that most people aren't even surprised to hear about what he gets up to, and they're certainly not disappointed. The other thing Sheen has going for him is being on television rather than movies. Making the move to TV was probably the smartest career move Sheen could have made if he had no plans to truly clean up. If he was still in movies the chances are the public would have gotten a "I'm not paying to watch this jerk" attitude. Nearly anybody with a TV gets to watch the network channels, even if they don't have cable or satellite. So basically people feel like they get to see Sheen for free, and if it doesn't cost anything why not tune in?

There is one more thing that Sheen has going in his favor and it's been a big factor in his maintaining a career: honesty. Sheen has never pretended to be anything but a bad boy, he's never been in denial about the kinds of things he does for fun. The fact that this latest stint in rehab is voluntary just reinforces the notion that he knows exactly what he is and doesn't lie to himself about it. This ability to be honest, even while continuing to be a rather messed up person, is a big part of Sheen's devil may care charm. Audiences hate to be lied to, but when a celebrity owns their mistakes as thoroughly as Sheen has over the years then those same audiences tend to be far more forgiving. Chances are that they will forgive him yet again.