scavenging among the celebrity hotspots of the world.

After a week during which Charlie Sheen was fired from the massively successful Warner Bros show Two and a Half Men and found himself with 2 million Twitter followers, all eager to witness every second of his compelling meltdown, it is clear that if anyone is fuelling Charlie Sheen's breakdown, it is Charlie Sheen. Don't blame the media. The media does what the media does, be it reporting from a war zone or scavenging among the celebrity hotspots of the world.

Sheen seems to have let drugs and hubris get the better of him. He is operating without PR counsel (his publicist baled out three weeks ago) and over the heads of wiser men. The media do not operate as a marketing or brand consultancy – Sheen is creating news and it would be severely remiss of news organisations to ignore it, especially given readers' appetites for this sort of story. Look at the reaction to Britney Spears shaving her head or Michael Jackson waving his baby over the balcony.

Charlie Sheen has seen an opportunity to be taken – he is pleased that he has 2 million Twitter followers and is prepared to play up to that and try to monetise it. He is fully prepared to exploit his own exploitation. The media, naturally enough, given the news cycle's continuous sprint for new news, want a piece of the action and Sheen is happy to accommodate them. Like the fox in the fable, Sheen has allowed the scorpion on to his back to carry it across the river. It may well sting him halfway across. He may well ask why it has done so. The scorpion – and the media – will always reply, "because it's in my nature".

What Sheen's manic decline proves beyond measure is the importance to stars of a powerful publicist, a person more vital to them, in these days of instant news, than a therapist. Sheen needs someone controlling his ego, shaping the tone of the narrative in such a way that the star is protected.