Sheen sues hotel woman for blackmail

Troubled actor Charlie Sheen has launched a blackmail action against a woman who accused him of abuse in a nationally televised interview.

Sheen, 45, is suing adult film actress Capri Anderson, who was found locked in the bathroom of his Manhattan hotel suite last month. He filed a lawsuit suit hours after Anderson went on ABC’s 'Good Morning America' and accused him of using racial slurs and grabbing her by the throat.

Sheen’s lawsuit claims Anderson threatened to make false allegations about the star unless he paid her $1m (€737,000).

The suit says Anderson’s allegations are false and calls them a “sensational tale”.

Sheen’s filing pre-empts a lawsuit Anderson said she would file against Sheen for battery and false imprisonment.

The 45-year-old actor had a brief stay in hospital after security at the Plaza Hotel reported he was disorderly and broke furniture in his room.

The troubled star voluntarily went with authorities for a psychiatric evaluation and was released from the hospital the same day. His publicist Stan Rosenfield said at the time that Sheen had an adverse reaction to medication.

Anderson told Good Morning America host George Stephanopoulos that she had been hired for $3,500 (€2,600) to join Sheen for dinner on October 25. She described as “absolutely untrue” reports that she expected to be paid for sex.

She said Sheen became increasingly unruly as the evening wore on.

“It’s hard to say, being that it was my first time hanging out with him, if it was normal everyday behaviour for him,” she said.

After dinner at a restaurant, she accompanied the “fairly intoxicated” Sheen back to his hotel suite, where “there was a little bit of romance, if you will”.

But in the room Sheen became increasingly agitated, including making racial slurs she did not specify. He snorted “a white powdery substance”, she said.

“When it became really uncomfortable was when he put his hands around my neck,” Anderson said. “At that point things began to very rapidly kind of fall apart and just really get out of hand.”

When she attempted to gather her belongings and leave, he threw a lamp and other objects at her, she said.

“Shocked and scared,” she locked herself in the bathroom and used her mobile phone to call a friend but not police. She explained to Stephanopoulos that she was not thinking clearly.

Later, Sheen texted Anderson, offering “a sum of money” she did not specify for her silence, she said.

In a statement, Sheen’s lawyer Yale Galanter denied Anderson’s claims and said she “never made any allegation to the police of any wrongful conduct on the part of Mr Sheen the night of the incident and she had every opportunity to do so”.

The allegations are a “blatant attempt to cash in on his celebrity”, Mr Galanter said.