Martin Sheen is standing publicly by his son's side after the 50-year-old actor announced Tuesday that he is HIV positive.
The elder Sheen took to the stage at the eighth annual CME Group's Global Financial Leadership Conference on Tuesday in Naples, Fla., where he opened up about Charlie Sheen's admission and praised his courage to come forward. "He had been leading up to this sort of story for several months, and we kept encouraging him to do it," said Sheen, according to a report by the Naples Daily News. "He kept backing away and backing away because it was like going to his own execution, I guess."
"It was the most difficult thing he'd ever done," noted Sheen, 75, going on to explain his son had reached a point of no turning back. "And he kind of sealed it when he called Matt Lauer last week and asked if he could go on."
But Sheen said the family didn't even know if the announcement would happen. "We didn't know until he walked on the set this morning that he was going to do it," said Sheen. "I saw him Saturday night, my wife and I went to see him, to make sure he knew we were behind him, and if he wanted me to go, I would have canceled this event. He said, no, this was his and his alone."
"When someone comes to themself, they have the moment of clarity, and they reveal their secrets — which all of us have — in public, it is a great sense of relief. It is a miraculous occasion," said Sheen, who has overcome his own struggles with addiction.
Watching his son open up to the world, however, proved extremely difficult. "This morning, as I watched him alone, reveal his deepest, darkest secret, I couldn't believe the level of courage I was witnessing, and that it was my son," he said, choking up. "I left him a message, and I said that if I had that much courage, I would change the world."
Unable to reach him later in the day, Sheen says he left his son another message: "That my favorite quote from Robert Kennedy was fulfilled with him today. Robert Kennedy once said, 'One heart with courage is a majority.'"
He went on to urge people to realize that addiction is a disease. "The effort to find the transcendence in our humanity, our brokenness, to accept the brokenness and to rise with it, without the drug, is what we call recovery. And I hope that this day is the first day of the rest of Charlie's life as a free man."
Magic Johnson also encouraged the younger Sheen to fight for a long life and help spread awareness about HIV and AIDS. "I wish @CharlieSheen and his family the best. With the advancement in treatments and medicine he can fight this disease and live a long life," tweeted Johnson, 56, who in 1991 revealed his own HIV-positive diagnosis. "In @CharlieSheen breaking his silence, I hope he joins me in educating the world about HIV/AIDs."
The former pro basketball star founded the Magic Johnson Foundation in 1991 to raise money for the fight against HIV/AIDS, and the organization has grown to address other health issues in underserved urban communities.
