Though the Charlie Sheen glaze has faded from everyone’s eyes (well, Sheen’s still look a little glazed), a question still lingers: why do we as a society let certain celebrities get away with being crazy, and even encourage it, while we condemn other ones for the same behaviour?

Sheen’s debacle inspired media frenzies, viral videos, T-shirts, a comic book, websites and some bitchin’ catch phrases that most other out-of-control celebrities can only dream of.

No one quotes Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears, no one really forgave Chris Brown for beating up Rihanna and no one gives a damn about Tiger Woods anymore.

Perhaps Sheen really is bi-winning and not just mentally ill.

While he’s not exactly matching his sitcom salary, he’s selling out shows by making his rants a marketable talent in Charlie Sheen Live: My Violent Torpedo of Truth/Defeat is Not an Option.

Do you think anyone would have paid to watch Christian Slater rant about himself?

While Sheen’s antics have put his acting career on hold, he seems to be focusing more on building his personal brand.

However, personal branding expert Dan Schawbel believes that Sheen’s antics are going to close many doors for him in the future.

“Despite the recent media blitz on national TV and on social media, many producers don’t want to work with him anymore because he’s not a well man,” observed Schawbel in an email.

Schawbel, managing partner of Millennial Branding, LLC, believes that the negative brand that Sheen has created for himself isn’t something advertisers or producers want to be associated with.

“All press isn’t good press all the time,” he said.

Unless Sheen apologizes, which is unlikely, Schawbel predicts that the negative publicity spawned from his recent fiasco will hurt his long-term acting career.

However, although producers, advertisers and others in the industry may not want to work with him, fans are getting a kick out of his latest debacles – some will even pay $750 to meet the tiger-
blooded star.

Jarrett Moffatt rode the Sheen wave by creating www.livethesheendream.com, a website featuring a headshot of the ex-Two-and-a-Half Men star alongside a collection of absurd Sheen-isms.

He believes that an apology by Sheen would ruin the image he’s created for himself.

“ Charlie Sheen is a crazy party guy and he’s honest about that, but someone like Tiger Woods built his brand up to being a family man.

Jarrett Moffatt, creator, LiveTheSheenDream.com

“He can do no wrong. He does all these weird things and people still love him for it,” said the 24-year-old Winnipegger. “I don’t think he’s been hurt by this at all.”

Moffatt believes that the public reaction to a celebrity’s scandalous behaviour is directly related to how it matches up with his or her own personal brand.

“Charlie Sheen is a crazy party guy and he’s honest about that, but someone like Tiger Woods built his brand up to being a family man,” he explained.

He thinks that part of Sheen’s appeal is that there was always a sort of irony to his personal brand.

“He’s living a rock star life but he’s on such a crappy, porridge show – it’s like watching oatmeal.”

Sheen is now in a position to talk about conspiracy theories and warlocks openly, and his audience loves it because this is his actual personality, believes Moffatt.

“The fact that he doesn’t have to apologize makes him more crazy and people love him more.”

Melanie Lee Lockhart, a public relations instructor at Red River College, believes that the success or failure of a celebrity after a scandal is contingent upon audience expectations.

“If (the celebrity’s) audience expects them to get into trouble, it won’t have a negative effect,” she said.

Lockhart believes that in terms of gender issues, the same concept applies.

It might seem that male celebrities are let off the hook more easily for their scandalous behaviour than females, but that all depends on the public audience’s perception of that particular celebrity.

We all expect Courtney Love to get busted for drug use, but we didn’t see Miley Cyrus’s salvia incident coming because it didn’t match up with our expectations of her.

While Lockhart doesn’t know whether Sheen’s acting career will suffer, she says that his recent behaviour won’t devastate his personal brand.

“Charlie has always been a bad boy; ... there’s no fundamental difference between what he did and what people expect from him.”

Published in Volume 65, Number 24 of The Uniter (March 24, 2011)