Chuck Lorre addresses Tom Arnold feud and Charlie Sheen drama in new memoir

Well, there's a reason he's known as the king of sitcoms. Chuck Lorre is behind some of the most successful sitcoms of the last few decades. Now Chuck's talking about those hits, a lot of mistakes in his new memoir sitcom. It's honest, it's raw, it's funny as hell. And it looks at his professional and personal life. Chuck Lorre, Long Island's boy. Long Island. Do you still have family on Long Island? No, no, everybody, you know, they departed to Florida many years ago. ago i hear you i hear and you moved to hollywood i moved to well yeah i guess we can generically call it hollywood yeah the la area yeah the book is unbelievable it's called sitcom why did you want to write this memoir it's very raw and you you go for you you you don't sugarcoat anything i didn't see the point of doing this and sugarcoating it i mean um i'm old and and i I figured, why would I, you know, why would I pretend that things didn't happen or did happen that, you know, why make believe about my life? Why not just lay it out there? Okay, so let's lay out some of the things. Sure. Okay, we'll go, first of all, you've had some of the best shows on TV. Thank you. Roseanne. That was not my show, but I was one of the hired hands. Right, you were one of the hired hands. I didn't realize, in the book you talk about Tom Arnold, who was Roseanne's husband at the time. He was also a writer at the time. And in the book, I had no idea. You said part of your friend Danny's job was to write real scripts, but put Tom's name on the front page as if Tom actually wrote the book. The script. The script. Why would they do that? Because they could. They could. Then you go on and you tell a little anecdote about Tom Arnold that apparently some of his love letters to Roseanne were stolen. I think they were from Roseanne to him. And they were stolen. They wound up in the National Enquirer. And in the book, you say basically that he hired a private detective to get to the bottom of this treachery, you say. And he did. It took one day. The detective found a cash check for twenty five grand from the National Enquirer made out to Tom Arnold. You know, and we're just we were happy to have a job, you know, which is OK. This is happening now. This is happening. And it was all kinds of drama back then. Roseanne, unfortunately, chose to to to demolish the national anthem at a baseball game. right next thing we knew there were helicopters flying overhead filming the roof of her house and uh Dan Quayle the vice president of the United States was demanding that you know that the show be taken off the air or whatever right there was an incredible amount of controversy and i think you know she she i think she relished the controversy that was part of her genius in a way so this morning i don't know if you saw Tom Arnold is on X talking about you and the book he says he thinks he's brilliant and beloved like Norman Lear but Chuck chuckles Laurie's a terrible human and angry dry drunk who lies every time he opens his mouth you know I'm not going to read everything but that is what Tom Arnold is tweeting about you this morning what do you think about that I told the truth that's all I could do that was the only you know the reason to do this book was to gain some perspective on my journey you know all the missteps all the mistakes. And God knows I've I've made some tragically poor choices over the course of my life. But they led me to where I am sitting here talking to you now. And I've had this extraordinary, unbelievably blessed career. And I've got to be grateful for it. And, you know, one of the things I have to deal with is nonsense like that. That's fine. Some of the best shows on TV, The Big Bang Theory. Thank you. You know, when I'm reading, you know, the behind the scenes of The Big Bang Theory, And I'm thinking, you know, with today's landscape, with so many options, social media, streaming channels, will we ever have a show like that with that kind of impact again? You know, as long as I've been doing this, people keep saying whatever this is, is over. And yet it carries on. And then something comes along and it rejuvenates it. You know, I can remember we're talking 45 years ago. The general consensus was the situation comedy was dead and then Cosby happened and it was very much alive. You know, so perhaps these things come in cycles. You know, I don't necessarily believe I have the some sort of mystical insight into the thing. But I think, you know, great work is going to find its way. um let's talk Two and a Half Men because obviously Charlie Sheen still has uh a lot of us intrigued with with his life read his blurb on the back it's worth reading aloud it's okay very tough when it comes to sitcoms and as a general life rule always bet on the guy not hammered on crack come on how good is that i know wait and then you know i love that you know you have these little vanity cards at the end of chapters. One of them you write about you. I exercise regularly. I eat moderate amounts of healthy food. I make sure to get plenty of rest. I see my doctor once a year, my dentist twice a year. I floss every night. I've had chest x-rays, cardio stress tests. You go on and on and on. If Charlie Sheen outlives me, I'm going to be really pissed. did he like that at the time i i actually ran it by him i i didn't i didn't want to inflame the situation i actually showed it to him and said is this funny can i do this yeah this was before the whole thing went south so i mean when you talk about um how things went south yeah and then you thought the show was dead in the water i was convinced it was dead yeah and and then everybody else well had some other ideas bringing ashton kutcher cbs Les Moonves who was the head of CBS called me and said I want the show to continue and I went what do you mean how can it continue it's Charlie is gone yeah how do we continue and he said uh something like Chuck in the fall there's going to be a show on CBS called Two and a Half Men figure it out and we We tried to, you know, and I just realized at a certain point, this was going on without me, with me or without me. And I wanted it to be with me. If it was going to go on, I wanted to be part of it. And we tried to make a deal with Hugh Grant, and he stepped aside. He ghosted you at some point, yeah. You know, he decided he had other priorities. That's fine. You know, I mean, I got to give him credit. He walked away from a gazillion dollars because he didn't feel it was right for him as an actor. You've got to respect that, right? Yes, absolutely. It was an insane amount of money. I wouldn't have walked away. Anyway, Chuck Lorre, I'm open to any sitcoms you have for me now. Anyway, the book is great. It's out right now. You'll laugh. You know, you like to use some salty language, which I love, too. It's a great walk down memory lane for some of the best TV shows in our lifetime. Thank you, Chuck Lorre. Appreciate you coming on. Great talking to you. Thank you.