News - How Charlie Sheen Made More Money This Year Than Ever Before

Charlie Sheen’s epic flame-out earlier this year didn’t hurt his bank account much. In fact, despite getting fired from TV’s top show for his erratic behavior, he pulled in more in the last 12 months than in any previous year: $40 million. The combination of his huge earnings, his ubiquity in the press and his impressive social media following makes him the highest-ranked TV star on this year’s Forbes Celebrity 100, coming in at #28.

How? Well, in 2010, prior to his crash and burn, he renegotiated his “Two and a Half Men” contract. For the last season of the hit CBS show, he netted about $1.3 million per episode in upfront salary, plus another approximately $600,000 in back-end syndication fees. That comes to $1.9 million for each 22-minute show. While he was fired before the season was out, he still made 16 episodes out of the 24 scheduled, making just over $30 million (note that Forbes Celebrity earnings numbers are based on pretax gross income – see our methodology here).

Sheen also made a small fortune on his post-firing ‘Torpedo of Truth’ live tour, organized by concert giants Live Nation, despite decidedly mixed reviews (he was booed in some venues, and critics panned it). Including his appearance fees and merchandise sales, he raked in an estimated $7 million.

The actor also made approximately $2 million in the past 12 months on endorsements, including his Twitter sponsorship deal with Ad.ly. He has a huge following on the social media site, which bolstered his #28 ranking on the Forbes Celebrity 100. When we finalized our data for the list on May 1, he had just over 3.6 million Twitter followers. Today he has almost 4 million.

Sheen also rakes in cash each year for DVD sales of previous films and TV shows, plus back-end fees for reruns of his old show “Spin City”. This year he took in about $1 million for these past projects.

To see how Sheen ranks compared to other stars, see our full coverage of the Forbes Celebrity 100. Sheen’s nemesis, “Two and a Half Men”, “Mike & Molly” and “The Big Bang Theory” producer Chuck Lorre, makes his debut at #77, pulling in $35 million — a little less than the star he famously fired.