Why did Charlie leave Two and a Half Men? The show responded by killing him off — twice
Until March 2011, Charlie Sheen was among the highest-paid actors on television, playing Charlie Harper on CBS's top-rated comedy. Then came a firing so public, and a feud so personal, that the show ended up killing his character two separate times, four years apart.
The firing
Season 8 had already paused so Sheen could go to rehab after a year of escalating incidents. Production was set to resume in February 2011 — and instead, Sheen called into a radio show and tore into series creator Chuck Lorre, calling him a clown and a charlatan, in the same stretch of interviews that produced "tiger blood" and "winning." CBS shut the season down. On March 7, 2011, Warner Bros. Television announced it had terminated his services "effective immediately." The remaining season 8 episodes were never made.
Death No. 1 (2011)
The season 9 premiere that September opened at Charlie Harper's funeral. The explanation: he'd fallen onto the tracks of the Paris Métro and been hit by a train, off-screen, while honeymooning with his stalker-turned-fiancée Rose.
"His body just exploded like a balloon full of meat," Rose tells the mourners, in the show's parting description of its former lead.
Ashton Kutcher's internet billionaire Walden Schmidt bought the beach house, and the show ran four more seasons. Charlie briefly returned at the end of season 9 as a ghost — played by Kathy Bates, a bit that won her an Emmy in 2012.
Death No. 2 (2015)
The series finale, "Of Course He's Dead," aired February 19, 2015, and revealed the train story was fake: Rose had kept Charlie captive in a pit under her house for four years. He escapes, sends threatening messages, and marches up to his old front door — shown only from behind, played by a double — at which point a baby grand piano drops on him from a helicopter. Then Lorre himself turns to the camera from a director 's chair, says "Winning," and gets flattened by a second piano.
Was Sheen asked to come back?
He was. In his closing vanity card, Lorre explained the offer: Sheen would ring the doorbell, rant into the camera about being an invincible ninja warrior from Mars, and then the piano would fall. Sheen declined and countered with a heartwarming scene teeing up a new sitcom for himself and Jon Cryer called The Harpers. Lorre's written response: "We thought that was funny too."
For the record: Sheen's reaction to the finale, delivered to TMZ a month later, made clear the feud had not softened.
Neither piano was metaphorical enough for either of them.