Denise Richards’ girls come first. On the Wednesday, April 22, episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, the actress opened up about the worries she has for her daughters with ex-husband Charlie Sheen.
“There’s a lot that the kids don’t know about their dad, and I want to keep it that way,” Denise, 49, said in a confessional. “Even though he’s Charlie Sheen, that is still, to them, their dad. I never talk badly about him and I want him to be part of their lives because I met a lot of the women that Charlie entertained and a lot of them had father-daughter issues. And I do not want that to be our girls.”
The Wild Things star and the Two and a Half Men alum, 54, were married from 2002 to 2006, and they share Sam, 16, and Lola, 14. Denise is also the mother of Eloise, whom she adopted in 2011 as a single mother, while Charlie shares Cassandra, 35, with ex Paula Profit and twins Bob and Max, 11, with ex-wife Brooke Mueller.
Denise returned home to Los Angeles on Wednesday’s episode after traveling to New York City to walk in her costar Kyle Richards’ fashion show. Upon her arrival, she told her husband, Aaron Phypers, whom she married in 2018, that Charlie publicly called her a “coward” in response to her court filing alleging that he owed $450,000 in back child support.
“Now I have a hearing set for November. But I do not want to go through all of that. I just don’t,” she explained. “It’s not just a one-time thing where you just show up to court. It’s like an ongoing thing where you can have depositions, declarations from different people. And that’s something, you know, the girls are going to be able to hear.”
Aaron, 47, comforted Denise in their kitchen and said, “I know you want to protect them,” to which she responded, “If he doesn’t want to pay child support, that’s on him. But it would be nice to not say anything negative about me with the kids that hear about it.”
The Real Girl Next Door author previously opened up to her castmates Teddi Mellencamp, Erika Jayne and Garcelle Beauvais about her child support battle with Charlie on the season 10 premiere of RHOBH. Erika, 48, offered to help Denise retain a lawyer, but the Bold and the Beautiful star had no interest.
“I appreciate the f–king advice, but if anyone knows Charlie, it’s me and I know how to handle it,” she said in a confessional on the April 15 episode. “It’s not your family, it’s mine.”
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills airs on Bravo Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
