Charlie Sheen’s Ex Brooke Mueller Says He ‘Really Stepped Up When My Stuff Was Going Dark’

Charlie Sheen is showing up for the people he loves these days — and his ex-wife Brooke Mueller has taken notice.

In the new two-part Netflix docuseries aka Charlie Sheen, Mueller — the actor’s third wife and the mother of his twin sons, Max and Bob, 16 — opens up about how Sheen, 60, supported her during one of the darkest periods of her life.

“Charlie really stepped up when my stuff was going dark. And it was really dark,” Mueller, 48, says in the Netflix documentary of grappling with addiction, something both she and Sheen have faced. “He had all the reason not to be there for me, ‘cause when you’re not in your right mind, you become a terror for other people in your life. And now he’s taken the role of the one who is the responsible protector, especially with the boys.”

She continues, “Now he has this role that is very different than the role he used to have, and it’s pretty beautiful, magical, and I think it’s like a perfect living amends.”

Their son Bob, who now lives with Sheen, discusses how his mother’s sobriety affects him in the documentary. “When she’s sober, she’s great,” he says about Mueller, who relapsed in the summer of 2023 after six years of sobriety. “So it’s like, as long as she’s sober, I’m happy.”

Reflecting on his living situation with his dad, he adds, “We’re kind of opposites right now. I forget everything; he remembers everything. Like with bottles, I always open bottles a little bit and then don’t finish it. And then I accidentally leave the bottle out, and then get another bottle to drink, and it drives him crazy. Even though a lot of our personalities are really different, they kind of like fix each other’s mistakes.”

Now eight years sober, Sheen acknowledges that helping Mueller is part of his journey. “Her timeline for recovery is just different from mine. That’s all,” he explains. “She’s chased the dragon a little longer than she probably should have, but she’s starting to see that if you keep trading people for drugs, at some point, you’ll just be left with the drugs.”

Sobriety didn’t come easily for Sheen, who relapsed multiple times over the years. The turning point came when he had to ask his childhood friend Tony to drive his 12-year-old daughter Sami — whom he shares with ex-wife Denise Richards, along with their other daughter, Lola — to a hair appointment because he had been drinking and couldn’t take her himself.

“It was the drive back that broke my f—ing heart,” he says in aka Charlie Sheen. “I could catch little pieces of her in the side view… and I knew that she was back there wondering, ‘Why isn’t this just a me and dad trip? Why is Tony involved?’ ”

“Just the way I felt in that moment, after that moment, thinking back on that moment, it was — it felt like I’d let her down. I carried that moment forward, and I just thought, ‘Okay, what can I do, scheduled or spontaneous, when she or any of my other kids need something, I’m the guy. I’m the go-to. What can I do to ensure that’s the case?’ And it was pretty obvious. Quit drinking.”

Today, Sheen has become the go-to parent he wanted to be.

“I always call him when I need something. Anything,” Lola says in the documentary. “I always feel like he’s the first person who will answer the phone immediately. And he’ll also drop everything to come help me. We started getting pedicures and smoothies together every three weeks to a month. It’s just nice because I never used to have one-on-one time with him.”

Bob adds of his own relationship with his dad, “I feel like it’s a deeper connection than most kids have with their parents.”

aka Charlie Sheen is now available to stream on Netflix.