Charlie Sheen's 3 Siblings: All About Emilio, Ramon and Renée Estevez
Charlie Sheen is the only Estevez sibling to go by his father’s screen name
Charlie Sheen’s three siblings, Emilio Estevez, Ramon Estevez and Renée Estevez, share the actor’s interest in film and TV.
Born to Janet and Martin Sheen, the four kids are all performers in their own right, working in front of and behind the camera. “We share a lot of the same characteristics,” Emilio once told Bobbie Wygant.
The firstborn, Emilio, was welcomed by Janet and Martin in 1962 in New York City. A year later, Ramon joined the family. Charlie arrived in 1965, and the youngest of the Estevez/Sheen family, Renée, was born in 1967.
When the kids were younger, Emilio told Jon Foss that the family formed strong bonds as they traveled together while their dad, Martin, filmed movies around the world. “We’re a pretty tight unit,” Emilio said. The Breakfast Club actor has also said their closeness has helped the family support each other through addiction.
Related: Martin Sheen's 4 Children: Emilio, Ramon, Charlie and Renée
While speaking to The Telegraph in 2011, Emilio addressed his brother Charlie's public struggle with addiction.
“We all had the same set of rules. So it really gives credence to this theory that it [addiction] is genetic, and that sometimes it skips either a generation or siblings," Emilio said. "My mother doesn’t drink. My other brother hasn’t had a drink in over 10 years, my dad hasn’t had a drink in 20. And I make wine.”
The Mighty Ducks alum told PEOPLE in 2019 that he and his family are “proud” of Charlie and the strides he’s made.
Here’s everything to know about Charlie Sheens’ three siblings and their relationship with the actor.
They grew up with Rob Lowe and Sean Penn
Charlie and his siblings were raised in Malibu, California, where they happened to live close to Rob, Chad and Micah Lowe, and Sean Penn.
“Everybody in their childhood has that family where ... any given weekend, you’re going to be maybe spending the night in the guest bedroom,” Rob told Oprah Winfrey in 2011. “That was the Sheens’ house for me growing up."
The boys also made movies together, with one being shot in the Sheen’s backyard. “It may be the stupidest movie ever committed to videotape,” Rob joked to The Evening Standard in 2018 about their 1977 creation titled The Beast.
Martin also remembered the boys’ friendship, telling Route Magazine in 2020, “Emilio was friends more with Rob. But Chad and Charlie were very, very close and they played Little League together and I got to know him and was very fond of him, and still am.”
They were often on the road
While the family’s home base was in Malibu, they were often on the road, traveling to whatever location Martin was currently shooting in.
“Travel for our family always meant two things: Dad got a job, and we’d be pulled from school (again) and bound to him on the road — whether we wanted to go or not,” Emilio wrote in The Washington Post in May 2023. “My parents believed that, for the family to stay together, the family had to literally stay together.”
Martin has also discussed this time in the family's life. “We’d wrench them out of school and take them to faraway places and they would object, you know, they had friends, they had investment in their studies and in their communities," Martin told Route Magazine. "... and we would just foreclose that, ‘No, dad’s got a job, we’ve got to go, pack it up, let’s go.’ ”
As for the locales they visited, Martin said the family went everywhere from Italy and Spain to the Philippines.
“Sometimes, I would take just one or two of them because the rest of them wouldn’t go,” he added, noting that he and Charlie went to Mexico alone for three months, and only Charlie and Ramon accompanied him to Kenya.
In 2012, Emilio and Martin released a memoir they co-wrote inspired by their family’s travels titled Along the Way: The Journey of a Father and Son.
"Truth is, most people don't know the half of it,” Emilio wrote in an article for Huffington Post promoting the book's release. "Even my own parents aren't aware of some of the crazy things that happened in my life, right under their noses."
All three of Charlie’s siblings are actors
Like Charlie, Emilio, Ramon and Renée all followed in their dad's footsteps, making their way into film.
Though their roles are uncredited, Charlie and Emilio both made their big screen debut in Martin’s 1973 film Badlands.
However, it wasn’t until Martin saw his oldest son in a play that he realized Emilio's gift. “I was astonished," the actor told The Telegraph in 2011. "He had this very emotional scene, and the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. And I began to realize: ‘My God, he's one of us.’ He had that same deep and personal thing. I thought, ‘Ah, he's cursed.’ "
Emilio went on to become a member of the Brat Pack, starring in ‘80s hits like The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo’s Fire before landing his famous starring role in The Mighty Ducks. He has also worked behind the camera, directing both Charlie and Martin in projects including Men at Work, Rated X and The Way.
Charlie's other older brother, Ramon, works mainly behind the camera, serving as a producer for shows like Anger Management and TV films including Anne of Green Gables, through his production company, Estevez Sheen Productions. He has also starred in projects such as the Martin-directed Cadence with Charlie and Martin, The West Wing with Renée and Martin and The Expert.
The youngest in the family, Renée, has appeared in Growing Pains, Addams Family Reunion and The West Wing. In 1988, she took on the role of Veronica Sawyer’s childhood bestie, Betty Finn, in Heathers opposite Winona Ryder, Christian Slater and Shannen Doherty. She also costarred with Martin in Emilio’s film The Way.
Ramon shares his dad’s real name
Though most of the world knows him as Martin Sheen, the patriarch of the famous family was born Ramon Antonio Gerardo Estevez — a name he legally retained. "I never changed my name officially," he told Closer Weekly in 2022. "It's still Ramon Estevez on my birth certificate. It's on my marriage license, my passport, driver's license."
Though Martin took on the Sheen name for Hollywood, he told the outlet that the decision was one of his life’s big regrets.
"Sometimes you get persuaded when you don't have enough insight or even enough courage to stand up for what you believe in, and you pay for it later,” he explained.
Martin's second-born son, Ramon, shares his full birth name, while Emilio and Renée share his surname. Charlie, born Carlos Estevez, is the only sibling to take on his father's stage name professionally. "When [Emilio] started out, his agent was advising him to change his name to Sheen and he wouldn't do it. And I thank God he didn't," Martin told Closer Weekly.
Emilio discussed his decision to keep the Estevez name in a 2023 interview with Salon. "First, my grandfather is Francisco Estevez. Francisco never saw his name on the screen. He never saw my father's name on the screen because my father had changed his name to Martin Sheen in 1958," Emilio said. "My dad ... thought, ‘Oh my God, what have I done? I shamed my father.’ "
Emilio added: “When I started acting, and when I started thinking about it as a profession, [my dad] said, ‘Don't change your name. Don't make the same mistake I did.’ "
Charlie and Emilio have appeared in multiple films together
In 1986, Charlie told the CBC that he and Emilio don’t compete when it comes to acting. “There’s no real sense of competition between me and my brother,” he said. “I feel that we’re different types ... and aren’t gonna really be considered for the same roles.”
That said, the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off actor did concede that it was “kind of strange” to be vying for the same films at the same time. “To walk across the hall and find the script on his bed — that gets a little spooky,” Charlie added.
The famous brothers have also worked on numerous movies together, including Wisdom (1986), Young Guns (1988), Men at Work (1990) and Rated X (2000). Charlie also had a cameo in the 1993 film Loaded Weapon 1, which Emilio starred in.
Emilio opened up about his working relationship with Charlie in their interview with Wygant. “He’s really like a sponge as an actor," Emilio said. "I was able to give him a little bit of direction here, and he just takes it and runs with it. He gives you back exactly what you’re looking for. For a director, he’s the perfect actor because he spits it right back out at you.”
Ramon and Renée worked on Charlie’s show Anger Management
The other Estevez siblings have also worked together. Following Charlie’s exit from Two and a Half Men in 2011, he returned to the small screen the next year with Anger Management.
The new role gave Charlie a chance to work more closely with his brother Ramon, who served as an executive producer for the show, and Renée, who wrote four episodes. Martin also appeared in 20 episodes of the show.
Charlie pulled a prank on Emilio on the set of Men at Work
While working on the 1990 film Men at Work, Charlie pulled an elaborate prank on his older brother that ended in handcuffs.
“I told Emilio ... ’Man, I got in a fight last night at the Sizzler,’ ” Charlie recalled to Wygant. “ 'Some guy wanted to take a picture and I got mad and then the all-you-can-eat shrimp went flying, I tagged him and the guy went down and I left.' ”
Emilio didn't completely buy the story, but The Breakfast Club star, who directed Men at Work, was in for a surprise later in the day. “Emilio calls action and a police car rolls into the shot,” Charlie remembered.
A cop pretended to question Charlie before placing him “under arrest” for assault and battery. “Emilio’s like, ‘Wait a minute, this is my lead actor ... [and the cop’s] like, ‘This man committed a crime last night and he’s going to jail,' ” Charlie recounted.
The bit was all for show, however, and Charlie was in on the joke. The prank ended when he pulled around the block. “[I] showed up with one of the cuffs dangling,” the actor said.
Emilio vowed revenge, telling Wygant, “If you pull a practical joke on me, it may not be tomorrow, it may not be the next day, it may not even be the next week — you may even have to wait years — but I will, in fact, get you back.”
Ramon once had to be disguised for a movie
According to Martin, the lines between work and family became blurred while directing his 1990 film Cadence, for which Ramon had to wear glasses.
“The reason we asked him to wear glasses [was] because we would all look less alike,” Martin explained to Route Magazine. “There was a scene where the three of us are playing together ... and we had to make sure that people were not thinking that it was father and two sons rather than these separate characters.”
Ramon told the Los Angeles Times in 1991 that he initially wanted to nix the theatrics. “I fought it [the disguise],” he said. “I wanted to look the way I do. But it gave me a real identity. It was fortunate the way it turned out. The decision wasn’t met with initial enthusiasm, it was met with opposed enthusiasm,” he admitted. “But, for the most part, I liked how it turned out to be.”
Not only did the trio manage to get the job done, Martin went so far as to call making the movie “one of the best times” he ever had. “I was so proud of both of them and the family thing never interfered with the picture,” he told Route Magazine. “They were as professional and as skilled as you could possibly be. I think it’s one of Charlie’s best performances.”
Renée attended pastry school
Renée’s career may have started out in film, but she found a new passion later in life, studying pastry and baking science at the California Culinary Academy, as reported by The New York Times.
While there, she met chef Jason Federico, whom she married on Oct. 11, 1997. The couple divorced in 2011.
Emilio was once married to Paula Abdul
Emilio was engaged to fellow Brat Packer Demi Moore in the '80s but the pair never married. In 1992, the actor tied the knot with Paula Abdul, however, they split two years later.
He is also a father of two: Emilio has kids Taylor Levi Estevez and Paloma Estevez from a past relationship with former model Carey Salley.
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