Wildman actor Charlie Sheen says he is tired of pretending he is not special and will demand a pay rise to go back to the CBS show Two and a Half Men.
The troubled star, already reportedly the highest-paid actor on television, appeared on rival morning show interviews on Monday to continue an attack on CBS and producers of his hit sitcom for shutting down the show because of his off-set behaviour.
Both ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's Today show featured him in their first half hours.
NBC interviewer Jeff Rossen appeared startled when Sheen said he was underpaid and expected $US3 million ($2.95 million) an episode if he was to return to the show.
He's reportedly paid $US1.8 million an episode now.
"You want a raise?" Rossen asked.
Replied Sheen: "Yeah, look what they put me through."
He went on to say he was tired of pretending he was not "special".
"I'm tired of pretending like I'm not bitchin', a total frickin' rock star from Mars," he said.
"People can't figure me out, they can't process me, I don't expect them to. You can't process me with the normal brain."
Rossen told the Today show hosts that he met Sheen's twin sons and his two new live-in girlfriends, who he calls "the goddesses".
Sheen, 46, denied being angry about his treatment.
"I'm passionate," he said.
"It's like everybody thinks I should be begging for my job back and ... I'm just going to forewarn them that everybody else is going to be begging me for their jobs back."
He told the network he never showed up to work under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
"Never once, never once, you know, a little bit sideways having not slept but never loaded, never drunk, nothing on the set," Sheen said.
"When I step between the lines it's on, I'm there to show others how it's done, it's not really rocket science you know."
Sheen's most recent bout of controversy started in January when he was admitted to hospital following an all-night party with porn actresses in his Los Angeles home.
CBS temporarily put the show on hold, sending Sheen on a rant against the show's producers.
He most recently engaged in a vicious public attack on Two and a Half Men creator, Chuck Lorre.
"I embarrassed him in front of his children and the world by healing at a pace that this un-evolved mind cannot process," Sheen told the Alex Jones Show.
"I've spent, I think, close to the last decade I don't know effortlessly and magically converted your tin can into pure gold.
"And the gratitude I get is this charlatan chose not to do his job, which is to write."
That outburst came in the days before the show's cancellation.
Sheen told the Today show yesterday that he would fulfill his commitments.
"I'm a man of my word so I will finish the TV show, I will even do season 10, but at this point because of psychological distress, oh my god, it's three million an episode, take it or leave it."
- with AP
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