Angus T. Jones, the “Half” on CBS’s “Two and a Half Men,” wants us to know how sorry he is if we misunderstood him when he described as “filth” the show that’s paying him millions of dollars a year, and begged people to stop watching it.
Jones said, in a video that spread like wildfire early this week: “I’m on ‘Two and a Half Men’ and I don’t want to be on it. Please stop watching it. Please stop filling your head with filth.” But what he meant, he explained late Tuesday, was: “I am grateful to, and have the highest regard and respect for, all of the wonderful people on ‘Two and a Half Men’ with whom I have worked and over the past 10 years who have become an extension of my family.”
Jones, who is one of the highest-paid teen actors on TV, also said that “[executive producer] Chuck Lorre, [Warner Bros. TV honcho] Peter Roth and many others at Warner Bros and CBS are responsible for what has been one of the most significant experiences in my life to date.” He added: “I thank them for the opportunity they have given and continue to give me, and the help and guidance I have and expect to continue to receive from them”
If he expects to continue to receive help and guidance from those suits, he must’ve thought better of that whole I-don’t-want-to-be-on-this-filth gag.
In the video, posted Monday on YouTube by Alabama-based church Forerunner Chronicles, Jones is seen saying: “You cannot be a true God-fearing person and be on a television show like [‘Two and a Half Men’]. I know I can’t. I’m not okay with what I’m learning, what the Bible says, and being on that television show.”
Forerunner Chronicles is run by Christopher Hudson, who has appeared in YouTube videos making controversial claims — like the time he accused Jay-Z of being a devil-worshipper.
Jones said he joined a Seventh-day Adventist church in L.A. this summer, but the church said in a statement that Forerunner Chronicles is not a ministry operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Jones, 19, said he “cannot address everything that has been said or right every misstatement or misunderstanding.”
Possibly because he cannot find any. Hard to say the media has misstated your words when it’s posted on YouTube.
Anyway, Jones said, he “never intended” for the remarks he made in that video to “reflect me showing indifference to, and disrespect of, my colleagues and a lack of appreciation of the extraordinary opportunity of which I have been blessed.”
To recap:
1) Show is filth.
2) No disrespect intended.
Sheen’s Wednesday comments about the latest “Men” career meltdown aren’t his first; he’d already told People magazine that “with Angus’s Hale-Bopp-like meltdown, it is radically clear to me that the show is cursed.”
That’s a reference to the Heaven’s Gate cult, whose members committed mass suicide in Southern California in 1997 — reportedly in hopes of reaching some UFO hiding behind the comet Hale-Bopp.
Sheen wasn’t the only Hollywood star enjoying Jones’s discomfort.
“The Office” star Rainn Wilson made a video mocking the teen while simultaneously plugging the final season of his own NBC comedy.
And actor Joshua Malina, formerly of NBC’s “The West Wing” and now seen on ABC’s “Scandal,” tweeted: “Variety: Kirk Cameron and Angus T Jones to team up for 700 Club sitcom, ‘One Man.’ ”
Meanwhile, Jones’s “Men” co-star Holland Taylor — she plays his grammy on the show — called him “a lovely young man” who is “finding his way.” As for the show being called “filth,” she told the celebrity Web site TMZ: “Oh paleeze!”
With Jones’s comments, Jon Cryer now officially becomes the only original Man on “Men” (the show debuted in 2003) who has not shot his career in the foot by savaging the show that made him rich and famous.
Sheen, a well-known actor before joining “Men,” famously described the show as a “pukefest” during a feud with Lorre and the studio in 2011. The showdown culminated in his being sacked from the show that earned him about $2 million an episode. (In the teen actor’s defense, Jones was being paid a mere $350,000 per episode at last reporting).
On the bright side, after Sheen savaged the show, it roared back in the fall of 2011, clocking 29 million viewers — the biggest season-debut crowd for any scripted TV show on any network since 2005. Of course, those 29 million people tuned in to see Sheen’s character killed off — hit by a train.
“Men” has shot about half this season’s episodes, with two more being shot this calendar year. Jones — whose Jake Harper character joined the Army this season — has not appeared in every episode so far, and was not scheduled to appear in those two episodes. He’s under contract for the full season.
(Jones’s remarks about “Two and a Half Men” start around 7:30):
And here’s Rainn Wilson’s parody:
