From the very beginning, Two and a Half Men was a hit for CBS, drawing in anywhere from 13 to 16 million viewers per season.
Many have credited the sitcom’s success to its long roster of A-list guest stars, from Kathy Bates (who won an Emmy in 2012 for her role as the ghost of Charlie Sheen’s character, Charlie Harper) to Megan Fox to Steven Tyler to Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, the chemistry between core cast members Sheen, Jon Cryer (Alan Harper) and Angus T. Jones (Jake Harper) was undoubtedly the real reason the show became a smash.
Two and a Half Men revolved around Charlie, a promiscuous jingle writer whose brother, Alan, and nephew, Jake, moved into his Malibu beach house after Alan’s wife, Judith Harper (Marin Hinkle), filed for divorce. Over the first eight seasons, viewers witnessed the ever-hedonistic Charlie bringing home woman after woman while a heartbroken Alan struggled to find love again.
Things took an unexpected turn at the end of season 8 when Sheen started behaving erratically in real life. After he entered rehab in 2011, CBS placed the series on a production hiatus and said in a statement, “We are profoundly concerned for his health and well-being.” Sheen — who was the highest-paid actor on TV at the time, with a paycheck of $1.8 million per episode — went on to publicly attack the show’s creator, Chuck Lorre, leaving the network with no choice but to fire him.
During the season 9 premiere, Charlie was said to have ԁıеԁ after falling in front of a train on vacation in Paris with his stalker neighbor, Rose (Melanie Lynskey). After his ԁеаtһ, Charlie’s house was sold to Walden Schmidt (Ashton Kutcher), who allowed Alan and Jake to continue living there, creating a modern family of sorts. The series finale — spoiler alert! — ultimately revealed that Charlie had been alive all along but kept prisoner by Rose. After managing to escape, he returned to his oceanside home, only to have a piano fall on him, leaving him ԁеаԁ once and for all without ever reuniting with Alan and Jake.
After Sheen’s departure from the show, he and Cryer went their separate ways. The Pretty in Pink star admitted on Access Live in 2019 that they had not spoken “in a couple of years,” explaining, “It’s kind of a roller-coaster when you have Charlie in your life, and I just haven’t decided to get back on that roller-coaster.”
Scroll down to see where the Two and a Half Men cast members are now!
Charlie Sheen
Sheen returned to TV in 2012 with Anger Management, which ran on FX for two seasons. He also made cameos as himself in Scary Movie 5, The Big Bang Theory and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation in addition to starring in 2013’s Machete Kıււѕ (under his birth name, Carlos Estévez) and 2017’s 9/11. He announced in 2015 that he is ΗΙV positive, having been diagnosed four years prior. He has been sober since 2017.
Sheen has five children: Cassandra with high school sweetheart Paula Profit, Sam and Lola with ex-wife Denise Richards and Bob and Max with ex-wife Brooke Mueller.
Jon Cryer
Since Two and a Half Men wrapped, Cryer has made single-episode cameos in TV shows including American Dad, Mom, Robot Chicken and Will & Grace. He has also had a recurring part as Lex Luthor in Supergirl, Batwoman, The Flash, Arrow and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. He published a memoir titled So That Happened in 2015.
Cryer has two children: Charlie with ex-wife Sarah Trigger and Daisy with wife Lisa Joyner.
Angus T. Jones
After getting his big break on the sitcom, Jones stepped away from Hollywood and devoted himself to religion. He even slammed Two and a Half Men as “filth” and called his character Jake’s story line “very awkward.” He went on to study at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Ashton Kutcher
Kutcher has only acted in a few projects since Two and a Half Men, most notably The Ranch, which released new episodes on Netflix between 2016 and 2020. He has also had success as an entrepreneur, investing in several start-ups and launching a “quarantine wine” with wife Mila Kunis amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kutcher and Kunis, who starred on That ‘70s Show together, have two children: Wyatt and Dimitri.
Conchata Ferrell
Ferrell, who starred as Charlie’s housekeeper Berta on Two and a Half Men, reunited with Kutcher on The Ranch in 2017. She ԁıеԁ in 2020 after suffering a heart attack.
Ferrell had a daughter, Samantha, and two stepdaughters with husband Arnie Anderson.
Holland Taylor
Taylor, who played Charlie and Alan’s overbearing mother, Evelyn Harper, starred in Mr. Mercedes from 2017 to 2019 and the 2020 movie To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You. She received her eighth Emmy nomination in 2020 for her role in Hollywood.
Taylor has been in a relationship with Sarah Paulson since 2015.
Marin Hinkle
Hinkle starred in Deception in 2013 and Speechless from 2016 to 2019. She has played Rose Weissman in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel since 2017 and Janice Gilpin in 2017’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and 2019’s Jumanji: The Next Level.
Hinkle has a son, Ben, with husband Randall Sommer
Melanie Lynskey
Lynskey had major roles in Togetherness from 2015 to 2016, Future-Worm! from 2016 to 2018, Castle Rock in 2018 and Mrs. America in 2020. She has also acted in independent movies such as 2016’s The Intervention and 2018’s Sadie.
Lynskey has a daughter with fiancé Jason Ritter.
