Hollywood actor Charlie Sheen today confirmed he is HIV-positive.

The Platoon actor, 50, speaking to Matt Lauer on American morning TV show Today, revealed he was diagnosed four years ago.

There was widespread speculation about Sheen's health in the media in the days before the interview.

Speaking to Lauer at NBC's studios in New York, Sheen said: "I am here to admit I am HIV-positive and I have to put a stop to the onslaught and barrage of attacks and sub-truths that are threatening the health of so many others."

In a letter to Lauer that the host read on air, Sheen said: "Sadly my truth soon became their treason as a deluge of blackmail and extortion took centre stage in this circus of deceit."

Asked how many people he had paid, Sheen said: "I don't want to guess wrong but enough to bring it into the millions, and what people forget is that is money they are taking from my children."

Lauer said Sheen had told him off-camera that he had paid out upwards of 10 million US dollars (£6.6 million) in the "shakedowns", and asked the actor about his financial situation as a result.

Sheen replied: "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, I've been unemployed. It's another chapter in my life."

Why Charlie Sheen was once one of the highest paid actors on TV:

At his career's peak, Charlie Sheen earned a reported 1.8 million dollars (£1.2m) an episode playing Charlie, the hedonist bachelor star of Two and a Half Men.

No wonder he was the highest paid actor on television: the part fitted Charlie Sheen almost perfectly.

Sheen, 50, has, with remarkable consistency, maintained a reputation as one of Hollywood's most notorious hellraisers for the best part of 20 years.

Alcoholism, drug abuse, allegations of domestic violence and a very public meltdown have defined him in the public eye as much as his insatiable philandering - Sheen has racked up five engagements, three wives, five children, countless flings, and even a few months living with two girlfriends he called "goddesses".

The Herald:

Born Carlos Irwin Estevez in 1965, Sheen is the youngest son of Martin Sheen (above), the actor who played president Josiah Bartlet in the 1999-2006 television series The West Wing.

Like his father, who was originally known as Ramon Antonio Gerardo Estevez, he took a stage name: Charlie Sheen. Being expelled from school for poor grades and low attendance did not stop Sheen junior from breaking into film by the end of his teens.

The Herald:

Making his debut in Red Dawn, a 1984 film about high school students who resist a Soviet occupation of the United States, Sheen played a cameo role in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) as a lothario delinquent, had his first leading role (pictured above) as a Vietnam-posted soldier in Platoon (1986), and starred alongside his father in the dark finance drama Wall Street (1987).

A string of further credits followed, but Sheen the man was beginning to steal the show from Sheen the actor. Having split up with his childhood sweetheart, with whom he had one daughter, Sheen accidentally shot his new fiancee, Kelly Preston, in the arm.

She broke off the engagement, and Sheen soon married Donna Peele, a model, but they divorced in 1996 when it emerged he had been a client of a prostitution ring run by Heidi Fleiss, the Hollywood Madam whose escort agency was exposed three years earlier.

By the late nineties, Sheen's over-indulgences were threatening his health. He suffered a stroke after injecting cocaine in 1998, subsequently checked into rehab, before fleeing hours later.

It was a sign of Sheen's notoriety that he played himself in a bit-part in Being John Malkovich (1999). He married the actress Denise Richards in 2002, and had two daughters with her, but she divorced him in 2006 accusing him of alcohol and drug abuse and threats of violence.

Despite off-screen chaos, Sheen helped Two and a Half Men to award after award from 2003, his role as bad boy Charlie Harper having more than a little in common with his private life.

A three-year marriage to the actress Brooke Mueller ended in early 2011. Sheen had assaulted her in 2009 and been forced into rehab once more. Social services took Sheenand Mueller's twin sons, and Sheen's public meltdown, which had begun with his being fired by from Two and a Half Men earlier that year after a series of incoherent rants directed towards Chuck Lorre, the show's creator.

Claiming that he was a "warlock" with "tiger blood", Sheen, by now living with his two "goddesses", released a video in which he told viewers, "I'm not bi-polar, I'm bi-winning."

The "goddesses", former porn star Bree Olson and model and designer Natalie Kenly, had left Sheen by the summer of 2011. Sheen recovered from his meltdown to star in Anger Management, a sitcom that lasted until 2014 despite being panned by critics, as a baseball player-turned-therapist - also called Charlie.