LOS ANGELES - In the wake of an incendiary radio interview with "Two and a Half Men" star Charlie Sheen, CBS and Warner Bros. Television said they are ending production on TV's top-rated sitcom for the season.
The decision was based on the "totality of Charlie Sheen's statements, conduct and condition," the companies said in a joint statement Thursday. The show's future was not addressed.
Production had been suspended in January to allow Sheen to seek rehabilitation. Earlier Thursday, Warner and Sheen's publicist, Stan Rosenfield, said the series would resume taping next week with Sheen.
That was before the 45-year-old actor's rambling, often vitriolic radio interview with host Alex Jones in which Sheen blasted "Two and a Half Men" producer Chuck Lorre and other targets including Alcoholics Anonymous.
The abrupt decision to pull the plug on additional episodes of the lucrative sitcom came after Sheen's increasingly erratic behavior, including an earlier interview in which he claimed he had sought to return to work but was barred by producers.
In his interview with Jones, Sheen repeatedly evoked violent images and ideas. He also derided Lorre in an attack that suggested anti-Semitism.
"There's something this side of deplorable that a certain Chaim Levine -- yeah, that's Chuck's real name -- mistook this rock star for his own selfish exit strategy, bro. Check it, Alex: I embarrassed him in front of his children and the world by healing at a pace that his unevolved mind cannot process," Sheen said.
"Last I checked, Chaim, I spent close to the last decade effortlessly and magically converting your tin cans into pure gold. And the gratitude I get is this charlatan chose not to do his job, which is to write," he said.
