After months of controversy, Charlie Sheen was fired Monday. CBS did not say if “Two and a Half Men” would go on without him.

NEW YORK — “Two and a Half Men” is down one man.

But Charlie Sheen’s firing doesn’t mean that the hit sitcom, or its unruly star, is going anywhere soon.

Production of this CBS series — TV’s No. 1 sitcom — had already been shut down for the rest of the season following the erratic actor’s wild partying, repeated hospitalizations and verbal salvos against his studio bosses.

In making the announcement Monday, Warner Bros. said no decision has been made about continuing the show without Sheen, who earned a reported $1.8 million per episode under a contract that extended another year. But even with the axing of the “Men” leading man, Sheen leaves behind eight seasons of hit-show episodes.

CBS has been airing “Men” repeats for several weeks in its regular time slot. Reruns are also seen in daily syndication and on cable’s FX.

Come to think of it, Sheen’s latest round of misbehavior feels like a rerun everyone had seen repeatedly from the actor, whose substance abuse and messy love life claimed the public’s attention long before “Men” came along. Sheen’s hard-living image was a major inspiration for the series.

Charlie Harper, its central character, is a composer of jingles and a freewheeling bachelor who was swiftly certified as the sitcom doppelganger of Charlie Sheen with the series’ premiere in 2003.

“I make a lot of money for doing very little work,” Charlie Harper said. “I sleep with beautiful women who don’t ask about my feelings. I drive a Jag. I live at the beach.”

Charlie was boasting to his dweebish, high-strung chiropractor brother, Alan (Jon Cryer), whose wife had just thrown him out of the house. Alan and his then 10-year-old son, Jake (Angus T. Jones), were seeking refuge with the none-too-welcoming Charlie. Voila! Two and a half men! The show was an immediate hit and remains a smash, this season averaging 14.7 million viewers.

As a homage to Charlie Sheen’s wild life, the show is necessarily sanitized for broadcast TV. Even so, it has grown raunchier through the years.

All that’s over, in a sense, with his sacking. No new episodes of “Men” will star the man who triggered it. Maybe the series can’t survive in his absence.

But “Two and a Half Men” reruns will live on. And odds are, Sheen will press on with his real-life sideshow of craziness no sitcom could ever hope to rival.