Sometimes I “joke” about Charlie Sheen’s PR team and how wonderful they are, but truly, his team is incredibly talented. Charlie is basically like a more coked-up and sex-obsessed, and less bigoted version of Mel Gibson – they could be cousins. Why is Mel currently crank calling Zach Galifianakis whilst hiding his assets in his fake Catholic church, and Charlie Sheen is back at work, making more than a $1 million a week? Because Team Charlie has their act together, and Team Gibson doesn’t. On Monday evening, People Magazine ran two Charlie Sheen articles, one right after the other. Both were angled towards a pro-Charlie agenda, and both are rather clever. The first was a formal condemnation of Radar’s report that Charlie “is going to die this week” and that he’s been going on more hooker-and-coke binges:

Rumors of Charlie Sheen’s imminent drug death are greatly exaggerated, according to his manager.

“Charlie has not been on a bender despite fabricated internet reports,” Mark Burg tells PEOPLE. “I’ve talked many times to Charlie and I saw him this weekend and he is doing well.”

Since Sheen’s hospitalization in New York, Internet reports claimed the Two and a Half Men star went on a cocaine-fueled rampage.

In fact, says his manager, “Charlie had a quiet weekend watching football and he’s fine and will be at work tomorrow. Last night he passed out candy at his house for Halloween and tomorrow he’s looking forward to getting back to the show.”

[From People]

Thus spoke People Mag. If Charlie’s manager is going on the record with People about the state of Charlie’s stank, then that means official Hollywood is still taking Charlie’s calls, because he still makes money for them. And just minutes after this report, People released this one:

Charlie Sheen is filing for divorce on Monday from his wife Brooke Mueller, a source tells PEOPLE.

The couple, who married in 2008 and have twin 1-year-old boys, have been living apart since April following a Christmas fight that landed Sheen in jail.

Sheen, 45, and Mueller, 33, have both since entered rehab in separate programs. Sheen was also placed on probation and sentenced to domestic violence counseling.

Sheen recently was hospitalized for a day in New York after he was found reportedly naked and disoriented in a hotel room. Police sources say he was drunk; his rep says he had an allergic reaction to medication.

At the time, Mueller spoke out in his defense, saying, “You know how things get blown out of proportion.”

[From People]

You know what this signals, right? That there’s nothing to see here, people, just a dude in the midst of a split with his wife (who STILL defends him), and that the hooker-and-blow story is just… well, it’s not “untrue” per se, it’s just not Charlie’s truth.

I can see this disaster (Charlie) playing out in one of two ways. Option One: Charlie will be convinced by his team to keep his head down and his nose clean (literally and figuratively) for several months, after which Charlie will once again be embroiled in yet another scandal, probably involving three hookers (one of them underage), a kilo of cocaine, a mountain goat, a hijacked UPS truck and a piñata, after which Team Charlie will be called in to clean up the mess. Rinse and repeat. Option Two: Charlie really is in the midst of some kind of horrendous spiral, and he’ll be going way down really fast. At this point, I think Option One is much more probable. The PR team is back at the helm. For now.

UPDATE: Just after I finished writing, Radar put out this Team Brooke Mueller story. Apparently, Brooke was “blindsided” by Charlie filing for divorce before her. Brooke had called Charlie to tell him she was going to file, and he beat her to it. No pun intended.

Photos courtesy of WENN.