Jon Cryer has a new memoir coming out next month. I suppose he wanted to get his side of the story out now that “Two and a Half Men” has finally, mercifully wrapped. The book is called So That Happened and The Hollywood Reporter has an exclusive preview. It’s long and we’ll only be including a few parts here, but it’s a fun, easy read so go there if you’d like to see more.

THR has an excerpt in which Cryer explains his side of Charlie Sheen’s 2009-2011ish breakdown. Cryer tried to walk a delicate line between being a supportive friend and recognizing Sheen’s behavior for the drug-addled, abusive meltdown that is was. He shares/paraphrases some texts that Sheen sent him right after Sheen was arrested for abusing his then-wife, Brooke Mueller, over the holidays in Aspen in 2009. In his messages to Cryer, Sheen always acts like everything is fine. Cryer’s inner monologue is the best. Maybe he had a great ghostwriter, but his dry, self-effacing humor comes across well. Here are some of the best parts, including one in which he admits hiring a hooker, at Sheen’s insistence, to help him get through a rough divorce.

Charlie asked him to hide a bunch of vanilla porn for him
One day during the first season of Two and a Half Men, I got a knock on my trailer door. It was Charlie — my trailer was next to his — and he seemed panicked.

“Dude! Dude! I need your help.” “Sure thing,” I said and ended the cellphone call I was on. “What’s going on?”

He handed me a heavy shopping bag. “Denise is coming over,” he said, “and I need you to hide something for me.” Oh, boy, I thought. If this is drug paraphernalia …

“Is it legal?” I asked. “What? Yeah, oh, yeah. It’s legal. Hey, thanks.” He left, and I had to look.

By legal, he meant barely legal. The bag was filled to the brim with porn.

Curiosity getting the best of me, I had to find out what kind of porn captivates Charlie Sheen, what decadence frightens him into having me squirrel it away for him. Clowns? Golden-shower pictorials? German scat porn starring Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke? I was prepared for the weirdest, but it really was all pretty tame, some of it just topless mags. Really, if this was the worst I’d have to deal with regarding Charlie’s vices, bring on the bags of porn for me to hide

He hired a prostitute from a site Charlie recommended
I was in a bad state right after my divorce, and I certainly didn’t feel dateable. I was an emotional basket case. What good was I to any woman I might have interest in? I decided I might as well pay someone for company and certain intimate pleasures so that I could at least get my equilibrium back with the opposite sex.

Charlie suggested a few online purveyors he occasionally used, as this was when prostitution was gaining a foothold on the Internet. He and I had different tastes, so I didn’t go with his exact recommendations, but my forays into prostitution were about as awkward as you might imagine.

My forays into prostitution were about as awkward as you might imagine. I went with an out-call for my first try, which means they come over to your house. My chosen vendor drove a white BMW and sported a sexy Finnish accent. It was really a very friendly experience, maybe because the act of having sex is quite the conversational icebreaker. The next time, I went to her place, which probably wasn’t really her place. We sat down, tried to make small talk and halfheartedly stumbled into a conversation about recent fluctuations in the stock market. Somehow I ended up spending 25 minutes of my hour helping her with financial planning.

How Charlie responded to him after Charlie’s arrestfor spousal battery
[I] read that… “Carlos Irwin Estevez” has been arrested in Aspen, Colo., for spousal battery [of third wife Brooke Mueller]. Alarmed and freaked out, I texted him: Dude, my thoughts are with you. If you need to talk, give a call; if you’ve got bigger problems, call me when you get back.

Charlie texted back: Thanks bro. Yikes — f— me, wut a bad day … I’m flying home tonite. I’ll try to call over the weekend. Shower rape was bad but the food was okay. Hair and makeup for mug shot got there too late.

He followed that with: And I had same bail bondsman as Kobe. … No joke …

Charlie’s manager, Mark Burg, called me to say that any statement of support I could offer up would be great. I told him I would be happy to but that it sounded like Charlie wasn’t sober anymore, and I hoped he’d get on track again. Situations like this are rough on your sense of friendship and loyalty, because the allegations are serious, yet you know Charlie and Brooke are a drug-troubled pair, and Charlie’s your longtime friend who was proud of his sobriety, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t do something to her, and you should give a woman the benefit of the doubt when she’s been abused, and oh, boy…

How Charlie parlayed his arrest into a massive raise
In February I got a knock on my trailer door one day, and it was Chuck Lorre. I invited him in, and he said, “Jon, can you talk to Charlie? I hear he’s going off the rails.” Chuck himself is a recovering alcoholic and open and honest about it. This was such a sincere plea that I knew I had to consider it. “I can try,” I told him.

The next day, though, Charlie went into rehab, so we never got to have that conversation. Charlie did, however, have a different kind of productive conversation — with Warner Bros. Despite falling off the wagon, a rocky marriage, looming felony charges and possible time behind bars, he managed to secure a massive raise [to $1.8 million an episode], fully three times what I was being paid. I immediately began contemplating a series of well-publicized drunken brawls in retirement homes or possibly leading cops on a destructive car chase just prior to my next contract negotiation.

[From The Hollywood Reporter]

There’s more in the Hollywood Reporter, including the fact that Charlie used to show Cryer vag pics of the girls he was dating. Cryer also accidentally ended up dating a woman who used to date Charlie. After Charlie told him this (with some trepidation) he dumped her. I’m sure there were more reasons why Cryer broke up with the woman, but it sounds like he was more pissed off that she never told him she used to date Charlie. Charlie said it didn’t work out with that particular lady because she wasn’t down for a threesome with him and another woman.

Cryer has even more funny anecdotes, and he comes across as a decent guy despite the hooker story. I like what he said about how “you should give a woman the benefit of the doubt when she’s been abused.” To me that was the takeaway from this story, and that explained a lot about why he kept largely quiet during Charlie’s meltdown. Incidentally, Cryer did sort-of say something about Charlie when everything was going down. Back in February, 2011, he tweeted “It’s too sad! Sorry guys, that you must hear so bad news! I’m also shocked!” In response, Charlie went on one of those UStream video rants he was doing at the time. He called Cryer a “turncoat” and a “troll” and faulted him for not reaching out. Cryer then went on Conan and joked that he was a troll. He said “Those words were really painful to me, for many reasons. Not the least of which is…um…I’m sorry, this is really hard for me. I can’t even believe I’m saying this. The fact is, I AM a troll.” It was funny and he handled all that crazy business very well.

Jon Cryer is shown with his new wife in 2014 and with his daughter and wife in 2013. Header photo is from 2009. Credit: WENN, FameFlynet and CBS