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Sheen ex: He 'never' disclosed HIV status

Bree Olson, one of the women Charlie Sheen called his "goddesses," who lived with him during the tumultuous period after the actor was fired from Two and a Half Men, says Sheen "never" disclosed his HIV-positive status.
Bree Olson with then-boyfriend Charlie Sheen in 2011.

(USA TODAY) -- Bree Olson, one of the women Charlie Sheen called his "goddesses," who lived with him during the tumultuous period after the actor was fired from Two and a Half Men, says Sheen "never" disclosed his HIV-positive status.

That appears to conflict with what the actor said on the Today show this morning.

When Matt Lauer asked Sheen if he had engaged in unprotected sex since his diagnosis, Sheen responded in the affirmative, adding, "The two people I did that with were under the care of my doctor and they were completely warned ahead of time."

Olson said she was not one of those two women, adding that the timeline of diagnosis Sheen presented on the Today show overlaps with their relationship.

"He never said anything to me. I was his girlfriend, I lived with him. We were together. We had sex almost every day for a year ... with lambskin condoms, which do not protect. … (They only) prevent pregnancy," Olson said Tuesday on The Howard Stern Show.

Olson also said they would occasionally have unprotected sex. "We were sleeping together every single night. He never said anything ever. 'I'm clean,' he said."

She added: "He would wake up all the time in the middle of the night complaining of these symptoms. And he would blame it on the steroids ... he took. A doctor came to the house all the time, and they would go into a room by themselves," Oldson said. "I have not spoken to him in quite some time. I loved him, yes, he was my boyfriend. I left the (porn) industry for him, and I never went back."

Olson said she feels betrayed and "angry," but added that her recent HIV test came back negative. "I brought (the results) all the way from Indiana," she told Stern.

Legal ramifications of Sheen acknowledging he had unprotected sex after his diagnosis await. According to TMZ, six women intend to sue the actor for intentional infliction of emotional distress, fraud and sexual battery.

In California, unprotected sex with the specific intent to infect another person is a felony, according to criminal defense attorney Mike Cavalluzzi. But that Sheen knew he was HIV-positive isn't enough to prove intent, he says.​ 

Cavalluzzi adds that lesser sexual acts (such an unwanted touching) would possibly be considered battery, a misdemeanor.

"What's interesting in Charlie Sheen's case is how it falls in the continuum of where medical progress is," Cavalluzzi says. "There are now many people who have undetectable amounts of HIV in the blood. There will be experts who will say the likelihood of contamination in a protected sex context is so low, it cannot be considered a criminal act. On the other hand, there will be experts who say when you are HIV-positive, you are always at risk of transmitting the disease."

TMZ, citing only anonymous sources, says Sheen did not know of his diagnosis until two weeks after he and Olson broke up.

Longtime AIDS activist Peter Staley calls disclosure "complicated" and a "huge challenge" for the HIV/AIDS community. "The primary method of preventing HIV is to make sure an HIV-positive person is not infectious, or that an HIV-negative person is using a form of protection," he says.

Staley calls for the creation of a legal and social environment where disclosure "is a safe thing to do."

"It's a very strange world we're living in where we're expected to disclose, but if we do disclose our lives can be upended and destroyed," he says. "People with HIV face these threats of disclosure all the time, it's not just Charlie Sheen. It's used against us by people we disclose to, again and again and again."

You can listen to Olson's interview here:

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