What’s the difference between Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan?

A penis. Seriously. Both are messed up drug addicts with a messy history of drinking, drugging and getting into trouble (also add hookers if you’re Charlie). And yet Lindsay Lohan. can’t get a job and Charlie Sheen is the star of America’s most successful (and APPALLING) sitcom, Two and a Half Men. Oh, I forgot the part where Charlie has a history of beating up women including those he’s married to. There’s that.

If you missed the fuss yesterday, Charlie Sheen was taken to hospital after police were called to his hotel where they found him naked, wasted, incoherent and surrounded by cocaine and alcohol with a screaming naked prosititute locked in his wardrobe. There was $7k worth of damage done to his room which was trashed. Naturally, his publicist claimed he’d ‘had an allergic reaction to medication’.

“Hookers, coke and trashed hotel rooms. How about those allergies, huh?” I said to my husband last night. “Yeah,” he replied. “That’s why I stay away from dairy.”

This morning, I received a tweet from someone saying “I know you hate Lindsay Lohan [note: hate is a very strong word and I certainly don’t hate Lindsay, I just think she’s a total mess and surrounded by awful enablers, which I’ve written about here, here, here and even here] but I’m interested to know what you think of this” and pointing me to the following article by Rebecca Macatee which appeared on Pop Eater.

It read in part…..

“Despite yet another public blunder, no one is questioning whether Sheen’s reprehensible personal choices have destroyed his professional career. We’re able to see him as an actor, whose on-camera abilities aren’t affected by his problems with a certain powdery white substance.

Yet we’ll continue to drone on about Lindsay, and how the once-promising starlet sabotaged her career. The troubled actress, like Sheen, has struggled with an addiction to cocaine and had some infamous encounters with the law.

Not to be an angry feminist, but does anyone else see the ridiculous double standard here? Sheen is a 45-year old father of five. Lohan’s a 24-year old single woman responsible solely for her own well being. Both are actors. Neither are role models. Yet why do we treat the two so differently?

Look, I’d prefer that Lindsay didn’t get a contract from CBS or anyone else. I think she needs a year or two out from Hollywood if she’s ever going to recover and get her life back let alone her career. But where are the consequences for Charlie Sheen? How come he gets to keep his high paying job and have his appalling behaviour overlooked with a wink and a nod?

Thanks JJSanger