Two and a Half Men star apologizes for remarks

Angus T. Jones, the 19-year-old star of the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men, apologized yesterday after drawing headlines and media ire by calling his show “filth” and advising people to stop watching it in a video testimony for Forerunner Chronicles, a Seventh-Day Adventist website (see video clips below).

“Without qualification, I am grateful to and have the highest regard and respect for all of the wonderful people on Two and Half Men with whom I have worked and over the past 10 years who have become an extension of my family,” Jones said in a statement. He also apologized for any indifference or disrespect his remarks may have reflected.

Jones, who is paid $350,000 per episode for the hit sitcom, spent most of the two-part video interview talking about his conversion to Seventh-Day Adventism but also warned viewers against watching his show: “Please stop watching it, please stop filling your head with filth.”

The actor said he attended a Christian private school in Southern California but didn’t take his faith seriously. Instead, he said he lived a materialistic lifestyle, smoking marijuana and taking LSD. At the end of last year, Jones said he started to realize that God was the center of his life and that he needed to change his lifestyle. He was unsure about renewing his contract with the show, but a friend convinced him to do it for the money. When the video’s interviewer Christopher Hudson asked if he considered that decision a compromise, Jones said he did.

He started attending a Seventh Day Adventist church in the Los Angeles area where he joined Bible studies and evangelism classes. Later on in the video Jones said, “You can’t be a true God-fearing person and be on a show like that. I know I can’t, I’m not OK with that.”

Jones, who started acting on the show when he was 10 years old, plays the son of an uptight divorced chiropractor, played by Jon Cryer, and the nephew of philandering jingle writer that was played by Charlie Sheen until he was fired from the show in 2010 after criticizing the show and CBS in bizarre drug-induced rants. Actor Ashton Kutcher replaced Sheen.

Jones’ contract with Two and a Half Men runs until the end of this season. Representatives from the show have not made any comment since the video was released.

Videos produced by Forerunner Chronicles, a website connected to the Voice of Prophecy Seventh-Day Adventist church in Los Angeles, includes ones hosted by Hudson on conspiracy theories, Satanic messages in media, and end-time prophecies. In earlier reports, The Associated Press incorrectly connected the site and Jones to Forerunner Christian Church in Fremont, Calif., a Chinese church in Northern California.

Seventh-Day Adventism does have some differences from traditional Christian orthodoxy, including worshiping on Saturdays and many believing that Ellen White was a modern-day prophet. Her teaching included an emphasis on health—abstaining from tobacco, alcohol, and meat—and the doctrine of investigative judgment, which says that in 1844 Christ entered the last phase of his atoning ministry and started reviewing the lives of believers.

In the video, Jones warns viewers against compromising with the world.

“The name of the game right now is compromise—meeting in the middle to get things done,” he said while driving his car. “According to the Bible, when that happens, we’re no longer standing for anything, we’re not longer on the side of the truth.”