Charlie Sheen didn’t want people to know he was HIV positive.
He wanted to hang on to the image he had — the cool, high-flying, hard-living party animal and ladiesman. The wild man. The cool dude. The man who could snort enough cocaine to down a herd of elephants and still keep on his two feet as if nothing happened… the man who bragged about having “tiger blood”, of being built differently from all other men.
The HIV label changed all that. Because HIV/AIDS is associated with homosexuality. Sheen had to admit that he has been intimate with both men and women. And he will be on medication to surpress the virus and save his life, for the rest of his natural days. And while the anti-virus medication he is on will prolong his life, and the fact that he has gotten off drugs and booze means that he’ll likely have a decently long life… he is still touched, by the stigma. A dirty, grimey little stigma, that will keep new potential lovers at a distance from what was once Hollywood’s most notorious playboy.
It was the blackmail that did it, in the end. Charlie Sheen had a revolving door of lovers walking in and out his bedroom. One of them stayed over, and spotted the medicines in his bathroom. Snapped a few pictures, and pressured him to pay up or be exposed to the public… Sheen owned up to it, rather than pay up. Because you never pay a blackmailer; they’re insatiable. Give them one finger, and they take the whole hand.