Emilio Estevez – the son of legendary actor Martin Sheen, and the brother of Charlie Sheen – was everywhere in the 1980s.
Best friends with Tom Cruise, engaged to Demi Moore, and the star of iconic films like The Breakfast Club, it sure felt like Estevez had a long and successful career ahead of him.
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But after the release of Mighty Ducks in 1992, Emilio has been conspicuously absent from the spotlight.
Especially considering how high-profile Charlie Sheen’s career has been in the last few decades, many fans have been wondering what happened to ’80s heartthrob Emilio Estevez.
Read on to find out.
What happened to Emilio Estevez?
In the 1980s, Estevez was as high-profile as it gets, both as a budding actor and the unofficial leader of the Brat Pack: a group of young Hollywood actors who appeared together in teen films of that decade. Other members of the group included Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy.
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Of course, Estevez’s most recognisable role from this time was in The Breakfast Club, as the jock Andrew who is sentenced to detention with the rest of the group. Other notable roles of the time for Estevez include St. Elmo’s Fire and The Outsiders.
By the late 1980s, many of the members of the Brat Pack’s careers had dried up, ageing out of the teenage roles that made them famous.
Estevez escaped this fate by winning a role in the Disney classic Mighty Ducks, playing the team’s cynical hockey coach Gordon Bombay. The movie spawned two sequels, and became one of Disney’s most successful franchises.
In 1992, the same year that Mighty Ducks was released, Estevez married pop star Paula Abdul. They divorced two years later, with Abdul claiming the reason being she wanted kids but Estevez already had two from a previous relationship.
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After the breakdown of his marriage and the fame from Mighty Ducks, Estevez decided he was done with the stress of being a famous figure. Instead, he chose to pursue a career behind the camera.
Though Estevez hasn’t entirely stopped taking on-camera roles, he’s mostly focused on building his career as a producer, writer, and director.
In 1996, Estevez directed and starred in The War at Home, which many consider the peak of his directorial career. The film also starred his father, Martin Sheen.
Why does Emilio Estevez not go by Sheen?
Growing up with a superstar father helped Emilio break into the acting business, but early on in his career, he knew he wanted to succeed on his own merit and talent. “I didn’t want to ride into the business as Martin Sheen’s son,” Emilio revealed in a 1983 interview with People.
The young star decided to take on his dad’s legal surname of Estevez. His brother, Charlie, who was born as Carlos Estévez, kept the stage name Sheen.
Sheen has revealed that he adopted a stage name in the 1950s to avoid racism. “Back in the day, in 1958, he changed his name from Ramón Estévez to Martin Sheen because, at the time, there was a lot of prejudice against people with the Hispanic name,” Estevez shared in May 2023.
Sheen said that he regrets changing his name all those years ago, and is thankful that one of his sons did not follow suit. “When he started out, his agent was advising him to change his name to Sheen and he wouldn’t do it,” Sheen told Closer. “And I thank God he didn’t.”
Are Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez close?
Over the years, Charlie Sheen and Estevez have starred in multiple films together, playing either friends or brothers in every role.
The pair remained close through the ’80s and ’90s, but that relationship broke apart in the ’00s as Sheen’s personal life took a downward spiral.
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It’s been reported that Estevez distanced himself from his brother after Sheen’s divorce from Denise Richards, and his subsequent issues with drugs and alcohol.
In 2011, Estevez told the Telegraph that he couldn’t understand his brother’s substance abuse issues, especially since they were “raised under the same roof.” Estevez says, “We all had the same set of rules. It really gives credence to this theory that [substance abuse] is genetic, and that sometimes it skips either a generation or siblings.”
After Sheen revealed in 2015 that he is HIV-positive, and is now sober, Estevez has spoken publicly about how proud he is of his brother.
“He’s great, amazing. I mean, he’s very public about where he’s at right now and we’re just proud of him,” Estevez told People, adding that they had plans to collaborate on a film project together in the near future.
Why isn’t Emilio Estevez in Mighty Ducks season 2?
Fans of the original Mighty Ducks trilogy were thrilled when it was announced that Estevez would be reprising his role in the TV series reboot that premiered in 2021. Following the airing of the first season, it was revealed that Estevez wouldn’t be returning for season 2, due to contract disputes.
At the time, Deadline reported that the reason for his ousting was due to the on-set COVID vaccine mandate which all cast and crew had to follow. Esteved released a lengthy statement refuting this news, writing: “I am not anti-vaxx. Full stop.”
Estevez said his reason for leaving the show prior to season 2 was “nothing more than a good old fashioned contract dispute and not, as some would believe, an anti-vaccine position.”
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