Dolly Fox backs Charlie Sheen's Clinton claim: 1987 moment on Arkansas set is confirmed

Charlie Sheen’s memoir has renewed attention to a claim that Bill Clinton showed interest in Sheen’s girlfriend during the 1980s. In The Book of Sheen, the actor writes that Clinton leaned toward an aide on the set of a film in 1987 and whispered, "Find out what you can about the brunette." Dolly Fox, who dated Sheen at the time, told Fox News Digital that the moment did occur and described the night in Arkansas as part of a larger, complicated social scene of the era.

Fox recalled the scene as it unfolded during productions on Three for the Road, when the cast visited the governor’s mansion. "We were in Arkansas, 1987, shooting a movie … We did go to the governor's mansion," she said. She said she greeted Clinton with a handshake and a casual, "Hello … How are you?" but emphasized that her attention was not on the governor. "I was in love with Charlie," she added, underscoring that the moment felt more like a flirtation than a threat. Fox stressed that Clinton was not creepy and that he didn’t do anything wrong to her.

Fox’s account is one of several threads tying the moment to the broader social world in which Sheen’s career began to take off. In his memoir, Sheen frames the incident as part of a pattern of behavior that he says transformed a harmless intern into a household name, calling it a slice of "creepy history" from that era. He writes that while he felt some pride in the attention he was getting, he also recognized Dolly’s discomfort, noting that she was objectified in the moment.

"It wasn’t creepy. Clinton was never creepy … He did not do anything wrong to me," Fox said of the moment, echoing her earlier depiction of the exchange as relatively harmless. Sheen, however, writes about the incident with a more tempered tone, suggesting that similar episodes were part of a broader culture surrounding young celebrities and powerful figures in the 1980s. Fox described the dynamic as part of a time when flirtation among public figures was commonplace and not easily reframed as a scandal.

Fox also described the long-standing social ties between her family and the Clintons. She said her mother, Yolande Fox, Miss America 1951 and a prominent social activist, had maintained personal connections with the Clintons for years. "My mother was friends with his mother, Virginia Kelly. When I next saw Hillary and the president, I was with my mother and we were at the White House … we were always friends and friendly," Fox said. She added that the families’ social circles even extended to the racetrack and inaugural events, and that she once attended the White House with her daughter, noting the Clintons were welcoming. Fox also recalled that Monica Lewinsky’s mother was a friend of her mother, adding, with a sense of disbelief at the layering of connections, that she has photos of Clinton holding her young daughter.

Despite the proximity of these social ties, Fox said she never revisited the incident with the Clintons or her daughter’s family at the time. She noted that there was no Me Too-era reckoning in the late 1980s and described how she responded then: she laughed it off, understanding the era’s norms while recognizing that the moment could be interpreted differently today.

"And it gets crazier because Monica Lewinsky’s mother was a friend of my mother’s! You can’t make it up. I have pictures of President Clinton holding my 5-year-old daughter. The whole thing is just such an incestuous funny story," Fox said, underscoring the complex social web surrounding the interactions.

In the years that followed, Sheen briefly revisited the moment in conversation. He wrote that the incident felt emblematic of a broader pattern in which a rising star could be caught up in the gaze of powerful figures. He described the moment as a chance for him to reflect on the transformations in his life as fame grew and the public lens intensified.

"Clearly the behavior that transformed a harmless intern a few years later into a household name had been in play long before her blue dress became famous," Sheen wrote, suggesting that the dynamic existed long before the public eye fixated on any one moment.

Fox News Digital reached out to Clinton for comment, but there was no immediate response from the former president by publication time. The report did not include a counterpoint from Clinton’s office.

Charlie Sheen’s ex-girlfriend, Dolly Fox, described the late-1980s era as one in which flirtation and power intersected in ways that could be misread in different eras. She said she remains proud of Charlie for taking accountability about his past and that their friendship has endured. "We did remain friends, and I have a tremendous amount of love and respect for that family," she told Fox News Digital. "I’m also incredibly proud of Charlie, because he’s really taking accountability. And it’s very brave what he’s done, and I just take my hat off to him."

The memoir and contemporary interviews have added another layer to the ongoing cultural conversation about celebrity, power, and how eras past are interpreted through today’s lenses. As entertainment and political histories continue to collide in public discourse, the 1987 Arkansas moment remains a focal point for discussion about the boundaries of flirtation, the complicities of social networks, and how such stories are remembered by those who lived them.