Charlie Sheen flew a plane drunk, had cocaine strapped to his leg while Nicolas Cage took over PA system; Clint Eastwood called during first intervention

In the Netflix documentary aka Charlie Sheen, the actor spoke about his experiences under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

By: Entertainment Desk

New Delhi | September 12, 2025 10:12 AM IST

3 min read

Clint Eastwood arranged Charlie Sheen's first intervention.

Actor Charlie Sheen has had a colourful life, to say the least, and he shared details about a lot of his past behaviour in the new documentary titled aka Charlie Sheen. He talked about how he commandeered a passenger plane once, and how the pilot of the flight let him take over the controls of the aircraft even though he was completely drunk. There were 300 people in the cabin behind him, an angry woman he’d just married, and he’d consumed nearly 10 shots in the minutes prior.

Sheen was on his honeymoon with his first wife, Donna Peele, when he was invited into the cockpit of the passenger plane they were flying in. After clicking a few pictures and saying his hellos, Sheen posed for the camera with the captain’s hat and jacket. Feeling like a pilot himself, Sheen asked whether he could sit in the captain’s chair. The pilot let him do so, and to take things one step further, he even switched off the autopilot for a few moments in order to show Sheen how to fly the aircraft. Sheen recalled this moment and said, “I sat back down, owning this experience, and I just knew that trouble was on the horizon. I felt untouchable.”

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The documentary included another interesting anecdote regarding Sheen and aeroplanes. Sheen was travelling with actor Nicolas Cage and the two had knocked down a few drinks, which motivated Cage to go over to the PA system and talk to the entire plane. He didn’t just say ‘good morning’ or ‘look to your left’, but the actor actually decided to play the character of a mentally unstable pilot. The actions obviously caused some ‘armed police officers’ to board the plane upon landing, but the actors were let go with a warning. Sheen admitted that this was one of the privileges of being a star. Even though Sheen and Cage got told off by the authorities, the Two and a Half Men actor was fine with it, because no one checked him for the ounce of cocaine taped to his leg.

Sheen’s close friends had reasons to worry, and his parents organised an intervention for him, which was attended by several celebrities like actor Rob Lowe and yoga guru Bikram Choudhury. Talking about the intervention, Sheen recalled how his father, Martin Sheen, who himself had struggled with addiction issues, handed him the phone with none other than Clint Eastwood on the other side of the line. “He said something to the effect of, ‘You’ve got to get the train back on the tracks, kid,'” said Sheen.

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