Denise Richards says she and Charlie Sheen weren't a 'swinging couple', calls marriage a 'dark, toxic time'
Denise Richards has refuted rumors that she had a "wild relationship" with ex Charlie Sheen before divorcing him while six months pregnant with their daughter Lola. The 49-year-old actress opened about her 2006 split from Sheen, 54, during Wednesday's episode of 'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills', HollywoodLife reported.
“It was a very dark time and very toxic and I filed for divorce when I was 6 months pregnant with [Lola],” she said, referencing the pair’s now 14-year-old daughter. “I always did whatever I could to hide Charlie’s behavior. How do you tell kids what’s really going on? I would say ‘Dad has to go to work, but he loves you so much, he wants to be there for you girls,'” she added.
The 'Wild Things' star then went on to clarify rumors that she and Charlie had a "wild" relationship. “A lot of people have an impression of me being wild and crazy, but Charlie was sober when we got married so we were not this swinging couple like people might assume,” the actress confessed on the May 20 episode. “We weren’t,” she confirmed.
Denise first met Charlie when they were working together on 2000's 'Good Advice'. However, they started dating only after her 2001 guest appearance on his show 'Spin City'. The famous duo eventually got engaged in December that year and proceeded to take their vows in a luxurious ceremony in June 2002. Two years later, Denise would give birth to their daughter Sam, who is now 16. Sadly, they split in 2006 after Charlie's relapse. It's worth noting that Denise was six months pregnant with their second daughter Lola at the time of their divorce.
The former couple has since been in the headlines over a dramatic custody battle. Charlie filed requests in 2018 to modify his child support arrangements with Denise and 42-year-old Brooke Mueller, his other ex-wife with whom he shares sons Max and Bob, 11. At the time, he claimed he couldn't afford monthly payments as he's been “unable to find steady work and [has] been blacklisted from many aspects of the entertainment industry.”
Denise filed an income and expense declaration a year after Charlie's request, claiming that he owed her $450,000. Denise, in her claim, said that Charlie “squandered over $24,000,000 from the sale in his interest in Two and a Half Men to pay his personal debts and to support his extravagant lifestyle at the expense of support payments for his children. During the time frame since our last stipulation/order in 2016, he has failed to pay $450,000 in support while diverting over $600,000 in assets to adult family members and converting thousands of dollars into cash for his own personal use.”
The 'Two and a Half Men' star responded to her claim in a conversation with The Blast in September 2019. “D and her legal posse traffic only in fiction,” he said. “My day in court is painfully overdue. She is behaving like a coward and the truth will prevail.” However, despite their past drama, the exes seem to share an impressive co-parenting relationship when it comes to their children. In fact, Denise even invited Charlie to her 2018 wedding ceremony with current husband Aaron Phypers.
“No matter what’s gone down with Charlie and I, I invite Charlie to anything having to do with the kids and I,” she said during a RHBOH episode about her Malibu nuptials. “Even if he did bring a prostitute as his date, I wouldn’t care. It’s just, it is what it is,” she quipped.
Aside from Sam and Lola, Denise is mother to seven-year-old Eloise Joni, who she adopted in 2011.