Brooke Mueller says she's been sober for nine months and is celebrating the milestone in her first public interview in 15 years.
The actress and model, formerly married to actor Charlie Sheen, opened up about her challenging journey this week on the “Hollywood Raw” podcast, comparing her sobriety to a badge of honor.
“It’s been tough. And a lot of people with my level of addiction don’t make it,” the 47-year-old media personality said. “In fact, most people don’t make it. I worked really hard. It hasn’t been easy. I’m sober. I work in a program. I believe in 12 steps.
“I’ve been sober for nine months,” she said. “Well, next week it will be nine months.”
Mueller spoke candidly about the cost of his sobriety — financial and personal — and said he still attends AA meetings and is part of a sober community in Malibu.
“Do you want to know how much it cost me since my first rehabilitation in [age] 19 or 20 to my 30th rehab at 47, that's millions [of dollars]”It's no exaggeration,” he said.
Her most recent stay was at a facility funded solely by insurance companies that did not “qualify” or “care” for her.
“They didn't care who 'could have been' or anything like that… the fantasticness of that experience [was that] “It was real and raw and it woke me up,” she said.
“When you’re ready to get sober and you’ve hit rock bottom, I think you can do it at the highest level. [rehab facilities] or even state-funded ones. But I think for me in particular, my experiences with treatment centers, and maybe the fact that I’ve been allowed, sometimes attended, as long as you pay between $60,000 and $140,000 a month, not all places, but many, will allow you to continue behaviors that are detrimental to recovery or get away with bad behavior that other treatment centers would kick you out for.”
Mueller noted that there are “expensive, credible places” that would kick out customers, but “there are plenty that won’t” do so as well.
Earlier in the interview, podcast hosts and TMZ alumni Dax Holt and Adam Glyn noted that they were not allowed to ask Mueller about “Friends” star Matthew Perry or the ongoing investigation into his death for legal reasons.
Mueller played a key role in the investigation by voluntarily providing information to detectives after Perry's death that linked the so-called Ketamine Queen, Jasveen Sangha, and Perry's acquaintance, Erik Fleming, to the case, according to law enforcement sources who are not authorized to discuss the investigation.
The “Extra” and “Entertainment Tonight” alum, who appeared on “Witchhouse” and the reality show “The World According to Paris,” long struggled with addiction, as did Perry. She said she started partying almost as soon as she began her Hollywood career — something she didn’t take very seriously at the time. Mueller reflected on her hard-partying days in 1995 at Hollywood’s Bar One, when “cocaine was very popular,” saying she started “with the glitz and glamour and jet-setting and saying a few lines on set.”
“It certainly didn't end that way,” he said, noting that “sobriety wasn't that popular.” [then] and as big as it is now.”
She has been in and out of rehab since her tumultuous marriage and split from the former “Two and a Half Men” actor, whom she met in her early 20s at the home of filmmaker Brett Ratner. She had been in and out of rehab since her tumultuous 2008 marriage and their 2010 split, amid Sheen’s wild “Tiger Blood” days and highly quotable public meltdown in the 2010s. At one point she lost custody of her twin boys, Bob and Max, and they were placed in the temporary care of Sheen’s ex-wife, Denise Richards, when they were 4.
Mueller said her children were traumatized by “all the chaos” surrounding her relationship with Sheen and that she and the kids moved to Utah for “several years.” There, she let loose for a while, snowboarding and playing tennis “among healthy people” without the gaze of the paparazzi.
She said her children live with her full time and that Sheen is her neighbor. She and the actor talk daily and he comes to visit them a lot: “We have a fantastic relationship” and “we have a very unique modern family here,” she said.
Mueller said that before she got sober, “it was a nightmare.”
“It’s really a nightmare. I have that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde feeling,” he said, adding that Richards “did step up” and was “really helpful,” even last year, which was “not a good time” for Mueller before his latest effort to get sober.
