Getty Actor Charlie Sheen and pregnant wife actress Denise Richards attend "CBS at 75" television gala at the Hammerstein Ballroom November 02, 2003 in New York City.
Denise Richards, of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, was first linked to Charlie Sheen over 20 years ago. Today, they are still co-parenting, though they are not romantically involved.
Both Richards and Sheen have since moved on and dated other people, though they have two daughters together, so they will always be linked in that way.
“Communication’s great with him,” Richards told Us Weekly in early May 2020.
The couple met in 2000 while filming Good Advice, though they did not immediately get involved or experience sparks flying. A year later, Richards was a guest star on Spin City, and that’s when they started dating according to People. She knew he was “the one” by the end of their second date, and they were engaged less than a year later.
Richards and Sheen Married on June 15, 2002
Just a couple of years after they first met, Richards and Sheen got married. At the time, Sheen was known for his usual “bad boy” antics around Hollywood, but Richards fell in love with him because he was “a strong man who could admit his weaknesses and work through them.”
By the time Scary Movie 3, which they both starred in, was premiering, Richards was pregnant with their first child together. She gave birth to Sam on March 9, 2004. Sam is Sheen’s second child and Richards’ first.
Soon after the birth of their daughter, Sheen took the job working on Two and a Half Men, and just one year later, when she was pregnant with their second child, Lola, Richards filed for divorce. At the time, the couple released a joint statement, according to People.
“We are deeply saddened by the recent events and out of our love and concern for our daughter Sam, our unborn child, and each other, we ask that you respect our privacy during this time,” the statement read. Richards asked for custody of their children and visitation rights for Sheen.
They officially divorced in April 2006 after publications reported that Richards said Sheen was abusing prescription medication, experiencing violent mood swings, gambling compulsively and watching pornography.
Their Relationship Continued to Be Rocky After Marriage
Though there were unfounded rumors that the two were getting back together in 2012, there was no reconciliation beyond friendship and co-parenting for the couple.
“We’ve actually become like brother and sister, we really have. Nothing more than that,” Denise told Huffington Post at the time. “We’ve become very, very good friends.”
In 2015, tensions escalated when Sheen attacked Richards on Twitter, calling her the worst mom alive and an “evil terrorist sack of landfill trash,” according to E News. Richards did not respond to the tweets. She did sue him in 2016, however, claiming that he had abandoned a trust he had created for their children and had also sent their daughters nasty texts about her.
Since then, they appear to be more amicable, though they were in a custody battle regarding their children in 2019 and early 2020. In September 2019, Sheen said that “D and her legal posse traffic only in fiction my day in court is painfully overdue. She is behaving like a coward and the truth will prevail,” according to The Blast.
This season on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Richards has discussed Sheen, saying that “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… there’s a lot that the kids don’t know about their dad and I want to keep it that way.”
She shared the update regarding their co-parenting after a recent episode of the show aired.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills airs on Bravo Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
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