UPDATED
Today's decision is sure to fuel a new legal war between Sheen and Warner Bros. In preparation, the studio last week hired top attorneys Ron Olson and John Spiegel. Sheen's litigation lawyer, Marty Singer, last Monday fired a letter to the studio demanding that Sheen is paid in full for the 8 unproduced episodes of the show's current eighth season but so far, the actor had refrained from launching a full-blown lawsuit against Warner Bros.
Olson and Spiegel's law firm, Munger, Tolles & Olson today sent Singer a reply to his letter from last week along with Sheen's termination notice. According to a copy obtained by TMZ, in it Warner Bros. details its reasons for firing Sheen. "Your client has been engaged in a dangerously self-destructive conduct and appears to be very ill," the letter read. It chronicles Sheen's recent personal troubles, including the New York hotel room incident in November, the wild Las Vegas weekend in January and the 36-hour bender at his house that led to Sheen's hospitalization on Jan. 27. It claims that Sheen reneged on a promise he made as part of signing a new deal with Warner Bros. in May, which required him to continue rehab treatments. The letter also claims that on Jan. 28, in a meeting at his house with CBS and Warner Bros. TV top executives Leslie Moonves and Bruce Rosenblum, Sheen agreed to enter rehab. But, with an airplane waiting for him the next day, he refused to leave his house, which he subsequently dubbed Sober Valley Lodge.
Even before the production shutdown, Sheen addiction problems had begun to significantly affect his performance on the show, according to Warner Bros. TV'. In the letter, the studio sites "his inability to perform the essential duties of his position, (including) his physical appearance, inability to deliver lines, inability to collaborate creatively with staff and crew, inability to work with the executive producers, inflammatory comments poisoning key working relationships, and frustration of the Show's creative environment by the public spectacle of his self-inflicted disintegration." In short, according to Warner Bros. TV's lawyers, the actors was fired for violating a clause in his contract by committing "a felony offense involving moral turpitude."
Sheen today seemed unfazed by the termination. In his vintage colorful style of bizarre imagery, he reacted to the firing with a statement to TMZ: "This is very good news. They continue to be in breach, like so many whales. It is a big day of gladness at the Sober Valley Lodge because now I can take all of the bazillions, never have to look at whatshiscock again and I never have to put on those silly shirts for as long as this warlock exists in the terrestrial dimension." His lawyer Singer later added that they will sue both Warner Bros. TV and Lorre.