Angus T. Jones outburst

Angus T. Jones words against Two And A Half Men have come under much scrutiny

In case you weren’t aware of it, Two And A Half Men star Angus T. Jones has come out in a hugely surprising diatribe against his place of employment for the last nine years, urging viewers to turn away from watching the hit US comedy and describing the program as “filth”.

There is, as there tends to be when it’s linked to such an outburst, a religious slant to all of this, with the 19 year-old actor saying that the show has been conflicting with his recent bible studies. "You cannot be a true God-fearing person and be on a television show like that," he says at one point. "I know I can't. I'm not OK with what I'm learning, what the Bible says, and being on that television show." Adding: "I'm on Two and a Half Men and I don't want to be on it. Please stop watching it."

The issue that Jones has here though is one of potential hypocrisy. Many of the sites carrying this story have wasted little time in pointing out that the teenager makes some $350,000 per episode, making him one of the wealthiest teenagers on television screens. What the actor does have in his defense is that he has been with the show since the beginning, when he joined as a 10 year-old back in 2003 and the development of his religious beliefs have come during his tenure with the show, rather than already being a factor before he joined.

That said, you have wonder where Jones, and indeed Warner Bros., are going to go from here. Will he stay put? It’s understandable in all walks of life that sometimes we have to do jobs that sit opposite our beliefs and ideals - religious or otherwise - in order to survive. But Jones is now one of the most high profile TV stars in the USA, and that supposed 350k per episode means he’s doing far more than just surviving. If you stripped it to black and white terms, you'd argue that were he were a man of his word he would expect him to step down from his role – which could provide another blow to the comedy, given that it’s lost some 6 million viewers since Charlie Sheen was replaced by Ashton Kutcher. It's rarely how life works, though, and maybe he’s been battling with these issues for some time, only now having finally found the confidence to speak out. Whatever your opinion of Christianity is, the fact is that for Jones this speech is a strong action that truly casts his dye in the sand. So strong in fact that if he subsequently decides not to leave, then he may find that the decision will have already been made for him.

Watch Angus T. Jones Two And A Half Men outburst: