The exasperating insinuation that any criticism of Sheen heralds a return to the HIV witch-hunts of the Eighties completely ignores the fact that the main reason he has been outed is because he had reportedly been keeping his infection secret from several thousand women. 

He’s no hero, he is a selfish hedonist, someone who thinks of only his own gratifications at the risk of others, a man who is a disgrace to his children, his ex-wives, his family and himself.

Perhaps understandably, his father, the actor Martin Sheen, spoke warmly of his ‘courage’. What else could he do?

You have to wonder about the women who hooked up with Sheen, who took their chances with him even though his reputation rolled before him like a toxic fog. If he had been living under a bridge instead of being a Hollywood star, would they still have gone to bed with this debauched loser? I wonder.

Meanwhile, nobody is supposed to say anything bad, because HIV can happen to anyone, right? Right. But if you go outside in the dead of winter, without warm clothes, over and over again, eventually you are going to catch a cold.