Charlie Sheen Recounts Bar-Hopping with the Brat Pack (Exclusive)

Charlie Sheen turned 60 on Sept. 3 and knows he’s got more years behind him than ahead of him — and that’s OK. But he’s looking back on some of them in two new projects: his debut memoir The Book of Sheen (out Sept. 9) and the two-part Netflix documentary aka Charlie Sheen (Sept. 10).

“It’s not about me setting the record straight or righting all the wrongs of my past,” Sheen says of releasing both projects at once — something he says he didn’t plan that way.

“Most of my 50s were spent apologizing to the people I hurt,” he says. “I also didn’t want to write from the place of being a victim. I wasn’t, and I own everything I did. It’s just me, finally telling the stories in the way they actually happened. The stories I can remember, anyway.” 

Below, in an exclusive excerpt from The Book of Sheen, he recalls one such story from partying with The Brat Pack.

I’d been tagging along with Emilio and his group of newly fame-minted work pals as they hit the town night after night. They were an all-star lineup of Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson and Andrew McCarthy. Rob’s fiancée Melissa Gilbert was a steady presence as well. I was rolling with the “it” group, from the most popular films of the moment: Breakfast Club, St. Elmo’s Fire, The Outsiders, to name a few. As a group, they couldn’t have been nicer to me; it was the gauntlet of hysteria they incited that had me constantly seeking shelter.

As soon as we’d exit the limo, I’d be relegated by their screaming fans to the role of stray dog, bringing up the rear for their crowd-parting, bar-hopping rambles. The night always began at the Hard Rock Cafe, then sashayed its way across the landscape of the gotta-be-seen popular hot spots. I felt so small and left out as I watched the Emilio-steered throng, redefining what a copious and decadent bask in the limelight could look like.

Chris was a passenger as well on many of those nights. We were oarsmen in the same unknown boat, providing cover and comfort for each other when we needed it most. All of that changed when his film Footloose came out and was a giant hit, sending him overnight to the other side of the velvet rope. That one hit me the hardest — my best friend in life was suddenly one of them. I was torn between hoping he was ready for it and knowing deep down that he wasn’t.

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As those nights escalated, I remained an invisible valet carrying the bags for a clob of celebrity that had the masses hypnotized. I wanted to be told just once by their babe-squad that I mattered too. Knowing it wouldn’t happen until my celebrated film had a line around the block required a patience I hadn’t developed yet. To be in the crush of LA’s insane mid-eighties club scene with Rob Lowe and a bevy of gorgeous gals was like being shipwrecked with a fat guy — you’re gonna starve.

Feeling like an afterthought in those vibrant settings lit a fire in me you could see from the f—n moon. My inner bear had officially been poked.

Excerpted from THE BOOK OF SHEEN by Charlie Sheen. Copyright © 2005 by Charlie Sheen. Reprinted by permission of Gallery Books,  an imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.

The Book of Sheen hits shelves on Sept. 9 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold. aka Charlie Sheen streams on Netflix starting Sept. 10.