Nellie Andreeva

UPDATED: After a daylong hospital visit that allegedly followed days of heavy partying involving drugs, Charlie Sheen has checked into a rehab. His hit CBS comedy series, Two and a Half Men, has been put on a production hiatus. “Charlie Sheen has voluntarily entered an undisclosed rehabilitation center today,” Sheen’s publicist Stan Rosenfield said in a statement. “He is most grateful to all who have expressed their concern.” This is a sharp reversal from the statement issued by Rosenfield this morning, which stated that the Two and a Half Men star will return to work on Tuesday as scheduled.

The series producer Warner Bros. TV and CBS have long tried to convince Sheen to seek professional help for his addiction, offering to shut down production in order to accommodate that. Despite the actor’s repeated refusals to do so, the studio and the network reportedly ramped up their efforts in light of Sheen’s most recent shenanigans that sent him to the ER.  Word is that they may have gotten help from Sheen’s father, Martin Sheen, who visited his son in the hospital yesterday and, deeply concerned, reportedly urged him to go to rehab. Since WBTV and CBS’ all previous attempts to talk the actor into going to rehab had fallen on deaf ears, that could’ve been the deciding factor. Legally, the studio cannot shut down production on the show without cause, i.e. without Sheen voluntarily checking into rehab. (Sheen had threatened litigation if they did so.) That has now finally happened. “Due to Charlie Sheen’s decision to enter a rehabilitation center, CBS, Warner Bros. Television and executive producer Chuck Lorre are placing Two and a Half Men on production hiatus,” the three parties said in a statement. “We are profoundly concerned for his health and well-being, and support his decision.”

It is not clear yet how long the hiatus will be and how that will affect Two and a Half Men‘s 24-episode season order. So far, the show has shot 16 episodes, 14 of them have aired. Men also went on hiatus last season (From Feb. 23-March 15, 2010) to accommodate Sheen’s stint in rehab following his arrest in Colorado on domestic violence charges. The show was able to make up most of the lost time and ended up delivering a full-season 22 episodes, only 2 short of Men’s regularly supersized order of 24 episodes a season.

Sheen is in the first season of a rich two-year deal for the show, which he signed in May after months of negotiations. The show, which makes tons of money for WBTV in syndication, also has been renewed through next season. While Sheen has been very professional on set, fulfilling his duties on the show, his personal life had been rapidly spinning out of control in the past few months with erratic behavior and bizarre accounts of binges involving drugs and porn stars.

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