Charlie Sheen spent up to '$400,000 a year' on prostitutes, sex-work mogul claims

Charlie Sheen estimated his spending at around US$60,000 but a sex-work mogul insists the figure is much higher. Photo / Getty Images

Charlie Sheen spent "$300-$400,000 a year" ($568,000) on prostitutes in the 1990s, it has been claimed.

The Anger Management star testified against notorious Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss in 1994, in which he said he'd spent $53,000 ($75,000) a year on her services, but the 52-year-old former sex-work mogul insists the actual figure was much higher.

She said: "The only reason his name came out is that when I was arrested, I had travellers' cheques in my purse with his name on them. On the stand he said a much lower amount than he actually spent with me.

"He probably spent closer to $300,000 or $400,000 on girls. He said something like $60,000."

Though Heidi is no longer in touch with Charlie - who revealed he is HIV positive in 2015 and claimed he'd paid extortionists around $10 million ($14m) to keep his diagnosis secret since 2011 - she is still a fan of him and his frank honesty.

She told The Hollywood Reporter: "I'm not friendly with Charlie Sheen. But I like Charlie Sheen. I like that he just does what he wants and he pays for women.

"But I think it's terrible they blackmailed him [over his HIV diagnosis]. Big deal. It's not like AIDS is a deadly disease anymore. It's better than having asthma. You just take a medication. Diabetes is worse than AIDS. It just has a stigma attached to it, but it's not a big thing."

Meanwhile, Heidi branded disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein a "disgusting pig" but admitted some of the accusations of sexual misconduct against him don't "make sense" to her.

She said: "I think he's disgusting and a pig. He handled this thing terribly. But some of it doesn't make sense to me. Especially when they say, 'Oh, it happened six times.' That's weird.

"I think in certain instances, women slept with him in exchange for a part, and he kept his end of the bargain."

These days, Heidi has stepped away from sex work and runs a bird sanctuary, but she has an idea of opening a "transvestite brothel" in the Nevada desert.

She said: "I think a male brothel wouldn't work, but a transvestite brothel would probably do really well. I live in Pahrump, Nevada. It's kind of near where [Lamar Odom] overdosed in a brothel.

"My good friend Dennis Hoff owns all the brothels in Nevada. He has an extra license he's not using. So I was thinking maybe we could make it a trannie brothel.

"I can see people driving an hour away to the middle of the desert if there's this beautiful trannie waiting there for them."

- Bang! Showbiz