Denise Richards has opened up about the moment that she came clean to her daughters that her former lover Charlie Sheen was HIV-positive.
The 54-year-old actress shares two daughters, Sami (21) and Lola (19), with ex-husband Charlie Sheen, 59, who publicly revealed in 2015 that he had been diagnosed with HIV several years earlier.
Thanks to retroviral drugs, the virus is undetectable — but the moment Sheen chose to share the news was anything but predictable.
Denise recently told Whine Down podcast host Jana Kramer that she was blindsided when Sheen made the announcement on live television.
“It was everywhere,” Denise said. “I think I picked them up early from school that day because I didn’t want kids at school to tell them.”
She also admitted she was “kind of upset with Charlie” because he “didn't warn” her before going public. “It was hard to explain,” she said.
Since then, both Denise and Charlie have been on very different paths — but their shared commitment to co-parenting has been evident.
Charlie, who’s been sober since 2017, credits that transformation to a single, sobering moment.
“I have a very consistent lifestyle now. It’s all about single dad stuff, and raising my... twin boys Max and Bob,” he told People in December 2023, referring to his 16-year-olds with ex Brooke Mueller.
Denise, who also adopted a third daughter, 13-year-old Eloise, opened up about raising her kids amid Charlie’s legal battles and public controversies — including domestic violence charges.
“When the girls were little,” Denise said, “I never talked bad about him in front of the kids, and that’s hard to do — to hold your tongue and not say certain things at times.”
“I don’t know if I did a disservice to them with that as well because now that they’re older, they’re discovering things that they didn’t know.”
Fast forward to 2024, and the family is not only healing but letting cameras in.
Charlie appears in the debut episode of Denise’s new Bravo reality series, sitting down for dinner with Denise and their daughters. During the scene, Sheen gives Lola some advice about handling public scrutiny.
“Don’t read anything,” the Emmy nominee says. “Don’t read anything about it. Because if you don’t read it, it doesn’t exist.”
While the show focuses on everything from co-parenting to sibling drama, one of the central storylines involves the real-life tension between Lola and Sami, whose rocky relationship takes center stage in the early episodes.
The root of the rift was a messy situation involving a breakup, best friends, and serious miscommunication.
In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Lola — who was recently baptized — opened up about what caused the rift and how the show helped bring her and her sister closer.
“I sat with the Lord on it for a really long time and then I decided it would be a good opportunity to spread his light in that business where it’s not really common for people to talk about Jesus,” Lola shared, revealing she agreed to join the show just three days before filming began.
Opening up her life to the public was “so vulnerable,” she said, but knowing she “serves an audience of one” — referring to Jesus — gave her peace.
“I was very judgmental of myself in the beginning, but I realized, like, ‘It’s okay to be different. It’s okay to not be like everybody else on TV.’ So that was the hardest part for me I think,” she explained.