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 / Updated / Source: & Other Stories By Eun Kyung Kim 
 
 Charlie Sheen revealed he is HIV positive Tuesday in an exclusive TODAY interview with Matt Lauer. 
 
 “It’s a hard three letters to absorb. It’s a turning point in one’s life,” the 50-year-old actor said. 
 
 Sheen said he made the announcement to end a smear campaign and extortion efforts. 
 
 “I have to put a stop to this onslaught, this barrage of attacks and of sub-truths and very harmful and mercurial stories that are about me, threatening the health of so many others that couldn’t be further from the truth,” he said. 
 
 READ: Charlie Sheen pens an open letter about his HIV-positive diagnosis 
 
 Sheen said he’s trusted the diagnosis with people he thought he could confide in, but has paid out upwards of $10 million to keep the illness a secret. 
 
 “What people forget is that that's money they're taking from my children,” he said about the “shakedowns” he has experienced. “I trusted them and they were deep in my inner circle, and I thought they could be helpful. My trust turned to their treason.” 
 
 He said appearing on TODAY will help put a stop to those payouts. 
 
 “That’s my goal. That’s not my only goal. I think I release myself from this prison today,” he said. 
 
 Sheen said he was diagnosed roughly four years ago, but doesn’t know how he contracted the virus. 
 
 “It started with what I thought was a series of crushing headaches,” he said. “I thought I had a brain tumor. I thought it was over.” 
 
 He also insisted it was “impossible” that he knowingly transmitted the virus to others. While he admitted to having unprotected sex with two people since the diagnosis, both were informed ahead of time and have been under the care of his doctor. But Sheen dismissed the idea that he engaged in high-risk behaviors. 
 
 "You're talking about needles and that whole mess? No, definitely not," he said. 
 
 HIV is the virus that leads to AIDS, which has no cure. But “Charlie does not have AIDS,” said the actor’s physician, Dr. Robert Huizenga, an associate professor of clinical medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. 
 
 While an HIV-positive diagnosis used to be considered a death sentence, and there still is no cure, medical advancements have helped turn it into a manageable illness. However, antiviral drugs must be taken for a lifetime. 
 
 Sheen revealed he takes four pills every day, and his doctor said the main battle facing the actor is not related to HIV, but relapsing into substance abuse problems or entering into depression related to his diagnosis. 
 
 “We’re petrified about Charlie. We’re so, so anxious that if he was overly depressed, if he was abusing substance, he would forget these pills and that’s been an incredible worry,” he said. However, he said Sheen has been vigilant about his regimen. 
 
 “Magically, somehow in the midst of incredible personal mayhem, he’s managed to continue to take these medications,” Huizenga said. 
 
 Matt Lauer interviews Charlie Sheen in a TODAY Show exclusive interview. Samantha Okazaki 
 
 Sheen said he hopes by going public with the diagnosis, it will help dispel the stigma of HIV. 
 
 “I have a responsibility now to better myself and to help a lot of other people and hopefully with what we’re doing today others will come forward and say, 'Thanks, Charlie,'” he said. 
 
 READ MORE: What Charlie Sheen's HIV announcement means for his health 
 
 Sheen said he told ex-wives Denise Richards and Brooke Mueller about the diagnosis when he found out. He also shared the news recently with his oldest daughter. 
 
 “It hit her hard, but she recovered. She’s tough like her dad,” he said. 
 
 “I said, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but it didn’t seem like you could do anything for me and I didn’t want to burden you with all the stress.’ But she was a rock star about it.” 
 
 Sheen's personal announcement Tuesday renewed a spotlight on Sheen’s troubled history with drug addiction, pornography and prostitutes. 
 
 Charlie Sheen and ex-girlfriend Bree Olson on the red carpet in 2011. Daniel Boczarski / Getty Images Contributor 
 
 Sheen rose to become one of Hollywood’s best-known actors through a series of memorable movie roles including "Wall Street" and "Red Dawn." In more recent years, however, his public persona was shaped by a public meltdown during his 2011 feud with the creator of “Two and a Half Men,” the television series that helped him become the highest-paid television actor at the time. In the end, Sheen was fired from the show. 
 
 He told Lauer that his behavior at the time had little to do with his diagnosis. 
 
 “I wish I could blame it on that,” he said. “That was more of a (ste)roid rage. This was on the heels of that.” 
 
 Sheen admitted that period was not one he looks back fondly on. 
 
 “There’s a lot out there I’m not proud of. You can only hear ‘winning’ in the streets so many times,” he said. “I’ve pissed off a lot of really good opportunities.” 
 
 WATCH: Sheen reveals, 'I'm HIV positive,' paid many who threatened to expose me 
 
 But he said he’s entering a more thoughtful and reflective phase in his life. 
 
 “I’m approaching a time of more of a philanthropic approach in my life,” he said. He admitted that paying off people to keep quiet about his condition, as well as other factors, has hurt his bank account. 
 
 “It’s not great. It will be great again. I’m a survivor. I’ve been up, I’ve been down, I’ve been rich, I’ve been poor,” he said. “It’s another chapter in my life but it’s not commerce driven. It’s socially driven.” 
 
 Charlie Sheen talks about his HIV-positive diagnosis with Matt Lauer. TODAY 
 
 He said he doubts his HIV positive status will have an impact on his future career, pointing out a conversation he is having with the chairman of Sony, who he said is “excited about doing a show again.” 
 
 He also said he has several films lined up. 
 
 “Thus far, there’s been no resistance,” he said. 
 
 Sheen wouldn’t predict how the general media will respond to his interview, but expected his comments at least will dispel some of the myths written about him. 
 
 “I would have faith that it will be a lot more forgiving and a lot more supportive than some of the garbage I was reading in the last couple of days. Frankly, I don’t think it can get worse that that,” he said about tabloid stories that insisted he was intentionally infecting others with HIV. “I just thought, ‘Wow. Damn. That’s just as far from the truth as anything could be.' They’re going to reveal a whole lot of proof because it’s just not there. It does not exist.” 
 
 After hearing some of the encouraging reaction people on social media have had to his announcement, Sheen said he’d gladly “ride this wave of support.” 
 
 “If there was one guy on this planet to contract this that’s going to deliver a cure, it’s me. It’s me. Seriously,” he said. 
 
 “I’m not going to be the poster man for this, but I will not shun away from responsibilities and opportunities that drive me to helping others.” ||||| The global goal to provide HIV treatment to 15 million people by the end of 2015 has been met—and the milestone even came ahead of schedule, UNAIDS announced in a report released this week, highlighting enormous progress made in achieving one of the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals. 
 
 “We are on the way to a generation free of AIDS,” declared U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who was speaking at a global development summit in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on Tuesday. “Now we must commit to ending the AIDS epidemic.” 
 
 So, Why Should You Care? This is a huge boost in the number of people around the world receiving much-needed antiretroviral drugs for HIV treatment. Comparatively, fewer than 700,000 people in the early aughts had access to treatment. Several factors have led to the success, including legislation allowing countries to produce their own copies of drugs at lower prices and increased global investment. Back in 2000, eight pills per day could cost a patient $10,000 per year, thanks to large drug companies with a monopoly on pricing and distribution; today, those medicines can be purchased for $100 per year, according to the report. Despite this progress, however, nearly 37 million people around the world live with HIV, 70 percent of whom reside in sub-Saharan Africa (66 percent of all new HIV infections occurred in the region in 2014). In addition, new infections in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa have increased by 25 percent since 2000. 
 
 “During the first decade of the epidemic, there was very little to offer someone dying from AIDS,” UNAIDS chief Michel Sidibé wrote in the report’s introduction. “The best you could hope for was that your family wouldn’t throw you out.” 
 
 “If we had stayed complacent, 30 more million people would have been infected with HIV, 7.8 million more would have died, and 8.9 million more children would have been orphaned due to AIDS,” Sidibé wrote. 
 
 Global investment went up from just under $5 billion in 2000 to $20 billion in 2014, according to the report. As a result, AIDS-related deaths have fallen 40 percent since 2004 and HIV infections by 35 percent since 2000. 
 
 The bigger goal now is making sure that 90 percent of those living with HIV are diagnosed and can begin receiving treatment, according to the U.N. The ultimate milestone: End the AIDS epidemic by 2030. 
 
 But progress will also have to address cultural and legal roadblocks. 
 
 “Stigma, discrimination, and punitive laws continue to affect the people most impacted by HIV and to block their access to HIV services in every region of the world,” the report said. “The criminalization of sex work, drug use, and same-sex sexual relationships among consenting adults hinders attempts to reach people at higher risk of HIV infection.” 
 
 Same-sex sexual acts are a crime in 76 countries, and in seven of those countries, the act can be punishable by death. Some 17 countries have laws that allow for the deportation of foreigners with HIV, and five countries in the Middle East do not allow entry to people with HIV. In a statement following the release of the UNAIDS report, Doctors Without Borders applauded the improvements in treatment but warned against complacency, saying the world “cannot afford to lose any momentum.” In some countries, HIV treatment coverage is as low as 17 percent, the organization said. 
 
 “When we see the situation in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, or the Central African Republic, we feel like we are stuck in a time warp,” Eric Goemaere, a Doctors Without Borders AIDS specialist, said at a conference last year. “In our projects, we receive patients at advanced stages of AIDS who remind us of what we saw before 2000 in southern Africa, when antiretroviral treatments were hardly available.” 
 
 Despite unprecedented growth in the past decade, the UNAIDS report also warned that more financial support for countries is desperately needed. To remain on track to end the epidemic by 2030, $8 billion to $12 billion will need to be spent on treatment programs annually through 2020. ||||| Charlie Sheen Exposing Sex Partners to HIV is a Crime 
 
 EXCLUSIVE 
 
 Charlie Sheen could have some big legal problems with the revelation he has HIV, because in California it's a crime for someone to have unprotected sex when that person knows he or she is infected with HIV. 
 
 Charlie has not said if he's had unprotected sex, but as we previously reported we know he's settled several cases with people who were unaware of his HIV status and had sex with him. If he did have unprotected sex, under California law, he could get 6 months in jail. 
 
 The law is clear ... anyone with a communicable disease who "willfully exposes another person" is guilty. There was a case this past March in which a San Diego man was convicted of the crime for willfully exposing his boyfriend to HIV. He was later sentenced to 6 months in jail. 
 
 The stakes are higher if someone knows they have HIV and has sex with another person with the intent to transmit the disease ... then it's a felony punishable by a maximum of 8 years in prison. 
 
 Law enforcement sources say no one has come forward yet complaining Charlie exposed them to HIV.
– It's true: Charlie Sheen revealed to Matt Lauer on the Today show Tuesday morning that he is, in fact, HIV-positive, and has known for four years. "It's a tough three letters to absorb. It's a turning point in one's life," says Sheen. The diagnosis came while he was hospitalized for a series of severe headaches. The 50-year-old actor says he has paid big money to people over the last four years who have threatened to go public with his secret—including a prostitute who once photographed his medication. "I think I release myself from this prison today," he said. Sheen said it's "impossible" that he has transmitted HIV to anyone else. He also told Lauer that he has had unprotected sex with two people since the diagnosis, but both were aware of his status. (TMZ reports that he has settled lawsuits with people who had sex with him but were unaware of his HIV status.) He's not clear on how he contracted HIV, but he spoke of his out-of-control drinking and drug use of a few years ago. "Bad decisions." Sheen's doctor also appeared on the show, and he said Sheen currently has "undetectable" levels of HIV in his body, thanks to medication. (The fight against HIV recently scored a "major win.")