Charlie Sheen Confronts Experimenting With 'Everything' in New 'Off Limits' Documentary: 'Suffocating Shame'

Charlie Sheen is confronting his drug-fueled past in a new documentary.

“The stuff I plan on sharing is stuff I had made a sacred vow to only reveal to a therapist,” Sheen, 59, said in a teaser for the documentary, aka Charlie Sheen, set to premiere September 10 on Netflix.

Sheen (real name: Carlos Estévez) was once the highest-paid actor on television, earning upwards of $1.8 million per episode by the eighth season of CBS’s Two and a Half Men. The show went on hiatus after Sheen entered rehab in 2011, and he was eventually replaced by Ashton Kutcher. Now nearing eight years of sobriety, Sheen has opened up for the first time about his tumultuous, “tabloid fodder” past.

“When you got a lot of shame about a lot of stuff... Shame is suffocating,” the actor said in the trailer. “I lit the fuse, you know, and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be. There’s only one person alive that has the answers to so many people’s questions about me and that’s me.”

The documentary features members of Sheen’s inner circle, including his second ex-wife Denise Richards, third ex-wife Brooke Mueller, Heidi Fleiss, Jon Cryer, Sean Penn, Ramon Estevez, Chris Tucker and more, as they help Sheen tell an unvarnished account of his life directly.

“Directed by Andrew Renzi (Pepsi, Where’s My Jet?), aka Charlie Sheen tracks his upbringing in Malibu to his effortless rise to megastardom — and dramatic fall, all within the public eye,” teases the documentary’s official description. “With a stunning clarity earned through seven years of sobriety, Sheen openly speaks about the subjects and events he’s never discussed publicly before … the most outrageous moments of Sheen’s life are revisited with raw emotion and exceptional warmth, painting a portrait of a flawed man whose penchant for self-destruction is ultimately no match for the ferocious love and forgiveness he inspires in those closest to him.”

Renzu told a news outlet that he spent months earning Sheen’s trust before the documentary went into production. “He did not want to make a documentary,” the director told Tudum on Wednesday, August 13. “[Sheen] was like, ‘Why step into this arena in this way?’ I had seven to eight months of relationship building with him before we even sat down to shoot the film. That was really important to me.”

The director gave Sheen the space to tell his story, but unlike many celebrity documentaries, he isn’t listed as a producer, seemingly suggesting the production team had full creative control.

“A guy like him has a lot to offer the world with that story,” Renzi explained. “A lot of times we are scared of hearing from people who have done things we might not agree with, when in reality we should be listening to them. Who better to reveal these kinds of things and to talk about these missteps? I find that to be a beautiful arc.”