text: Will we have the first American sitcom with openly HIV-positive star? Charlie Sheen, who yesterday publicly acknowledged his condition following a National Enquirer report, had been looking to topline another primetime comedy series. In the weeks leading to the admission, Sheen had been actively meeting with producers about developing a new half-hour starring vehicle for him. I hear among those Sheen reached out to and had meetings with were CBS TV Studios-based Eric Tannenbaum, who executive produced Sheen’s hugely successful CBS sitcom Two And A Half Men as well as executives from Sony Pictures TV. I hear nothing came out of the sit-downs, and there is no Sheen series set up at the moment. 
   
   During the Today interview yesterday, Sheen indicated that he has major projects in the hopper, including several features, and was confident that his HIV-positive status will not have an impact on his career. He pointed to his talks at Sony TV, noting that chairman Steve Mosko was “excited about doing a show again” with him. “Thus far, there’s been no resistance,” Sheen said. It is yet to be seen whether any potential lawsuits by sexual partners from the four years he had kept his condition a secret would change that. 
   
   Sheen had been HIV-positive during the entire run of his previous sitcom, Anger Management. According to his own account, he was diagnosed in 2011, around the time he was pitching the project. It is unclear whether the actor revealed his condition to Lionsgate TV/Debmar-Mercury, which signed on to produce the show, and FX, which picked it up to series. Sources indicate that many if not all cast and crew members on the show were not aware Sheen was HIV-positive, at least not in the beginning. According to tabloid reports, Sheen’s colleagues became suspicious when production was shut down multiple times over the star’s health problems. A leaked email from the Sony hack indicates that top Sony TV executives and likely other industry types outside the studio were aware of the actor’s condition by early 2014. 
   
   Still, despite his 2011 public meltdown that led to his firing from 2.5 Men and heavy drug and alcohol abuse to which Sheen has confessed, most recently in the Today interview, he was able to complete 100 episodes of Anger Management in 2.5 years and is looking for a follow-up series. That would be his fourth sitcom, following Spin City, 2.5 Men and Anger Management. ||||| 
   
   Charlie Sheen on “Anger Management.” (Greg Gayne/FX) 
   
   Apparently lost in the massive Sony e-mail hack that wreaked havoc on Hollywood last winter: this e-mail sent to several Sony Pictures Television executives in March 2014: 
   
   “I think I will win the 90/10 bet on the over under on this … it’s hard to to be a drug addict and be HIV positive and do 40 eps a year.” 
   
   Included was a link to a TV Week article about how Charlie Sheen was a no-show on the set of his FX series “Anger Management,” and crew members were so frustrated they were threatening to quit. 
   
   The hacked e-mail amounts to a tasteless joke by an executive, saying that he didn’t expect Sheen to reach the 100-episode mark that would send “Anger Management” into syndication (and create a lucrative windfall for all involved). The 90/10 refers to the “Anger Management” deal that said if 10 episodes did well in the ratings, FX would pick up 90 more. As a reminder, Sheen landed the series, which aired from June 2012 to December 2014, after he imploded and was fired from CBS’s “Two and a Half Men.” The conventional wisdom at the time was that Sheen, known for erratic behavior, would be able to hold it together for 100 “Anger Management” episodes shot in just a couple years. (The show filmed exactly 100 episodes.) 
   
   [Charlie Sheen says he’s HIV-positive, has been extorted for $10 million over diagnosis] 
   
   The e-mail indicates that Sheen’s HIV diagnosis was no secret to some in the entertainment industry. And while Sheen’s announcement that he is HIV-positive (and his claims that he spent $10 million trying to keep it quiet) was a huge story this week, a passing reference to the news was out there for two years for anyone to see, be it publications that initially pored over the documents or anyone who dug into the Wikileaks Sony hack page. And yet the story was never revealed. 
   
   This bit of information gives some context to what Sheen and Matt Lauer talked about when discussing his future career prospects at the end of his “Today” show interview. Sheen’s confident attitude makes sense given that his diagnosis was already known in certain circles. 
   
   “Let me ask you about working and your career,” Lauer said. “You had a show canceled a couple years ago. You are, I imagine in need of working again … how do you think this revelation might impact your status or standing in Hollywood?” 
   
   “As we speak, I have the chairman of Sony excited about doing a show again,” Sheen said. “I have a couple of films lined up that I could, you know, put start dates on. There’s a lot of people that we’ve even told that I’m going to do this [interview] before I came on — privately, of course — and they said, ‘Well, of course… he’s still the best guy for the job.’ ” 
   
   “And so thus far,” Sheen concluded, “there’s been no resistance.” 
   
   Read more: 
   
   Charlie Sheen’s porn star ex is furious after HIV reveal: ‘He never said anything to me.’ 
   
   Jon Cryer is brutally blunt describing the worst Charlie Sheen years on ‘Two and a Half Men’ 
   
   ‘Two and a Half Men’ finally gets revenge on Charlie Sheen with insult-filled series finale
target: – Charlie Sheen's HIV diagnosis was joked about in an email exposed, but never publicized, during last year's Sony hack, the Washington Post reports. The email from a Sony exec was joking about the fact that Sheen wasn't showing up to work on Anger Management, his FX series. "I think I will win the 90/10 bet on the over under on this … it's hard to to be a drug addict and be HIV positive and do 40 eps a year," the email reads. It's always been available on the Wikileaks Sony hack page, but hadn't been released to the larger public until now. The email was referring to a deal that stated if 10 episodes performed well, FX would order 90 more; the series, which premiered in June 2012 and ended in December 2014, was supposed to film 100 episodes in two years, enough to send it into syndication—and it did end up filming exactly that many. As the Post notes, the email illustrates the fact that some in the industry were very much aware of Sheen's diagnosis before he revealed it publicly. Deadline notes that Sheen is currently looking to do another TV series.