Denise Richards Revealed That She Felt 'Guilty' Divorcing Charlie Sheen

Actress and OnlyFans star Denise Richards has shared new insight into her split from ex-husband Charlie Sheen.

The former Bond girl married the actor in the early 2000s, but the couple divorced after Sheen's struggle with addiction damaged their union. Richards later remarried "The Leap" star Aaron Phypers but had raised her daughters, including an adopted one, for several years before meeting the actor.

Richards has now shared that deciding to divorce Sheen was not an easy one. She also revealed that she felt terrible for choosing to split the family up, but she intuitively knew it was the right move to end her relationship with the "Saturday Night Live" veteran.

Richards recently appeared on the "Divorced Not Dead" podcast hosted by Caroline Stanbury, where she gave various insights into her personal life. She discussed her divorce from former "Two and a Half Men" star Charlie Sheen, stating it was a difficult decision.

"I struggled with that for years," she told her host on Wednesday's podcast episode, per Page Six.

Through a self-introspection that included deep thoughts about her children, she eventually felt in her heart that it was time to end the marriage. "I said to myself, 'Would I want my daughters married to this man?' No offense to him, but I think he would take that and understand what I'm saying, and that's when I was like, 'Well, why am I accepting this?'"

The "Wild Things" star, who at the time already had one kid with Sheen and a second was on the way, admitted that the choice to leave the marriage left her reeling because she "felt guilty for splitting up the family unit."

In the podcast, Richards, who wed Sheen in 2002, also acknowledged that the union was "extremely toxic" and that their futile efforts to resolve their personal problems caused the marriage to last only a few years. The couple divorced in 2006, and Richards remained unmarried until she tied the knot to Phypers in 2018.

Years before her marriage to Phypers, the "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" alum adopted a daughter, Eloise, and continued co-parenting with Sheen, their children, Sami and Lola. Despite their differences, the actress acknowledged that she went out of her way to protect the kids from Sheen's public battle with addiction.

"I did shelter them a lot, and then they started to get to an age where 'so and so said this,' and I lied my ass off and covered for him," she revealed. "Now, as they're starting to get older, they're more aware of more things. That's why I say I don't know if I did them a disservice when they were younger."

It was no small task for the actress to raise her children independently for most of the years following her divorce from Sheen. She taught them many profound things, including the need for a healthy body image.

"When I was working out, I would never use the words 'being in shape,' or anything like that — it was just, 'be healthy,'" the 51-year-old said in a recent interview, per Yahoo Life. "So that's something I instilled in my girls from a very young age. I think it's important, especially now, for us to embrace our bodies and be strong — to be empowering, and owning it."

Richards is also a supporter of her daughters' interests. Most recently, she expressed support for Sami's decision to create an OnlyFans account, telling Yahoo Life that she appreciates the platform for enabling creators to "engage with fans in a more dynamic way" and "control the narrative of their own content."

While Richards seems to be having the best of life in her marriage plus enjoying the pleasure of seeing her daughters succeed in their endeavors, she does have specific experiences that she wishes she could change. She expressed her regret about having cosmetic surgery during her time in the limelight.

"I tell them, if I could do it all over again, I would not have had implants," she told the publication, referring to a conversation with her daughters. "As far as Botox and fillers," Richards only stated, "I move my face too much."

The actress was recently portrayed as a powerful boss named Debra in Amazon's romantic comedy "Love Accidentally." Brenda Song, Aaron O'Connell, Maxwell Caulfield, Brooke Newton, Pedro Correa, Gib Gerard, and Marc Anthony Samuel are also part of the cast in this movie.