Blog: Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and even Paris Hilton. There have been some spectacular Hollywood meltdowns but there is something even more sinister about Charlie Sheen’s apparent descent into madness, argues Tracey O’Sullivan.

Sheen’s unravelling story once again proves the potential perils of fame and fortune – a life of constant notoriety in which no-one questions your actions or motives until it has all gone too far. Until then, sadly, bad behaviour is still seen and sold as entertainment.

It seems Britney and the rest of Tinseltown’s attention-seeking divas only got the ball rolling. They gave the baying public a thirst for watching the collapse of a person’s mental stability with callous abandon for the very real victims. Of course, it is human nature to be intrigued by any spectacle but at one time we would at least have had the decency to feel some shame at our rubber-necking antics.

But with the increasing grip of social networking on society and the rise of reality television making fame a cheap commodity it is all too easy to devour the details that those desperate to stay in the spotlight are willing to give.

Charlie Sheen opened his Twitter account two weeks ago, rushed through by bosses who could smell a soaraway success, and he now has a record two million followers.

And it’s not because his 140 characters will be a veritable feast of witty banter. It’s because people are hoping this drama will get even juicer by the tweet. I hate to say it but they are also possibly hoping it will get all the more tragic.

But maybe the saddest thing of all is that you can hardly blame people any more for wanting their fix of the real-life soap. After all, Charlie Sheen has been playing it out in public for his own ends as he fights a bitter custody dispute over his two young twins. He also has two older daughters.

And therein lies the rub. There are children involved here and they are the true victims. Not only have they been thrown into a media circus not of their choosing – who on earth really wanted to see that disturbing footage of the 23-month-old boys being seized by police – but also being subjected to the most bizarre lifestyle choices of their rich and famous father.

Pictured with the two girlfriends he currently lives with, the women he has dubbed his “two Goddesses”, Charlie Sheen revealed himself to be a troubled man who has lost all perspective – most of all when it comes to his role as a father. His ex-partners may have taken steps to keep their children away from him  for now, while he continues to court a high-profile running commentary on his latest disasters, from being sacked to waving a machete from a rooftop, but frankly that’s not enough protection for those children. They are going to suffer the fall-out of this mess.

This is a tragedy playing out on a international stage and if Charlie Sheen is an ill man, which he very much appears to be, then is it not about time that somebody somewhere took charge of him for his own good?

For all the world to see the man looks a danger to himself and has been a danger to those around him for some time. Why is nobody stepping up to do something, from his family to the authorities? It is time for some action and some enforced help.

Whether that’s cutting off the supply of attention which is fuelling his increasingly bizarre antics or simply forcibly taking him out of the spotlight, this freak show surely has to be brought to a halt soon.