Charlie Sheen wasn’t winning when his time on Two and a Half Men came to an abrupt end.

In fact, in the lead up to his firing from the series at the height of his public meltdown in 2011, Chuck Lorre admitted the energy around the set was “dark” and “frightening.”

“I think I can speak for everyone who was working on the show back then that we were frightened that something terrible was going to happen,” the sitcom co-creator told E! News in an exclusive interview. “We were frightened that Charlie might get hurt, that someone else might get hurt.”

Indeed, the legendary showrunner—also creator of The Big Bang Theory and Mike & Molly—emphasized that his concern for Sheen at the time was “no longer about misbehavior,” and instead focused on everyone’s safety.

“This was about our people, including our friend and the star of the show, physically in danger and people around them would be in danger,” he continued. “So, it was a scary, scary time, and it took me many years to put it in perspective.”