Denise Richards is speaking in detail about her marriage to Aaron Phypers, and she is drawing a clear line between who she says he was at the start and who he became. On the August 3 episode of Bunnie Xo’s Dumb Blonde Podcast, the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star, 55, said the relationship “didn’t start out that way,” but eventually became abusive across multiple fronts.
“I was in an abusive marriage. It didn’t start out that way, though. Physically and emotionally, financially, all of it,” she said. “He was a completely different person than the person I married.”
It’s important to be clear about where things stand legally and where they don’t. A court has granted Richards a five-year restraining order against Phypers after her domestic violence accusations. Phypers, for his part, has denied the abuse allegations as “completely false and deeply hurtful” in a previous statement to PEOPLE, and has made his own accusations against Richards, including infidelity and physical abuse, in a July 2025 interview with TMZ. A source close to Phypers has denied all accusations against him. Richards denies ever hitting him.
When She Says Things Started To Shift
Richards pinpointed a specific turning point: after Phypers, who is Canadian, obtained his green card.
“After we got the green card was kind of when things started to shift,” she said. “Verbally abusive. And it was a slow burn. This wasn’t overnight. It was like slowly chipping away, putting doubts in my head about certain things.”
She described a pattern that experts commonly associate with coercive control, small, repeated erosions of confidence rather than one dramatic event.
“He knew little things to say to me, to put doubts in my head, to make me feel insecure about choices I was making,” she said. She also described how he inserted himself into her finances under the guise of support. “He was like, ‘I’ll help you. I’ll take care of, I’ll help you with your finances.’ That was the biggest mistake I made. I thought he had my best interest. He made me believe he was taking care of me and wanted to build a life with me.”
The First Time She Says It Became Physical
Richards described the first incident of physical violence as a turning point she still remembers clearly.
“I was so shocked. I was like, ‘Oh f**k, there’s no going back from this,’” she said. She recalled her father’s warning growing up: “If a man hits you once, he’ll hit you again.”
She said Phypers appeared deeply remorseful afterward, enough that her own reaction surprised her. “You see who they were that you fell in love with. And that they’re so remorseful. He was so remorseful. And to the point where I felt bad for him, where I’m like, ‘It’s not that bad.’ I played it down. I didn’t know even the mental part of it at that point.”
She said the physical incidents escalated over time. “It was stuff that I could hide on my arms or something. And then he gave me a black eye,” she said. “And that was where I was like, what am I gonna do now? What am I going to tell people?”
Why She Says She Didn’t Leave Sooner
Richards addressed the question she says she hears constantly, about why she stayed.
“A lot of people ask me that. I didn’t [see]. I wouldn’t have married the person,” she said. “I knew it was wrong, but I was so beaten down that I didn’t know how to leave. It’s survival.”
She also pushed back on assumptions about why she never called the police herself. “People ask me, ‘How come you never called the police?’ I’m like, I didn’t call the police and they showed up, and that’s what happened to me,” she said, referencing an incident where officers responded to an argument at Phypers’s home while his cousin was present, and she alleged he became physical after they left.
Richards said one of her daughters saw through Phypers before she did. She shares daughter Eloise, 15, with Phypers, and daughters Sami, 22, and Lola with ex-husband Charlie Sheen.
The Infidelity Accusation She Denies
Richards also addressed Phypers’s claim that she cheated on him, an accusation that became part of their divorce proceedings. She acknowledged exchanging what she called “inappropriate” text messages with another man but denied ever being unfaithful.
“I was very loyal to my husband,” she said, describing the resulting legal fallout as devastating in its own right. “To turn on me the way that he did publicly and do all that stuff about me, that was more devastating. The betrayal that he had toward me, that was the worst.”
Where Things Stand Now
Phypers filed for divorce from Richards in July 2025, citing irreconcilable differences, after the two wed in September 2018. Their divorce is still heated. A court recently ordered Richards to pay Phypers $5,000 a month in temporary spousal support. This is despite her wish for the payments to go the other way.
Both the restraining order and the support order are documented legal outcomes. The abuse allegations are still disputed. Richards provides a detailed account, while Phypers denies it and makes counter-accusations. This divorce is unfolding in court and in the public eye.
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