Denise Richards Admits She Was ‘Incredibly Naive’ to Ex Charlie Sheen’s Addiction Struggle When They First Met

Denise Richards looks back on her marriage to Charlie Sheen and how she didn’t fully know the extent of his addiction.

During an appearance on Bethenny Frankel’s Only B podcast, the The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum, 52, admitted she was “incredibly naive” when it came to her ex-husband’s addiction.

Richards claimed it was Two and a half Men star had been “sober for four years” when they met and never doubted he would “relapse,” despite many asking her if she was worried about his sobriety.

Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen.

Gregg DeGuire/WireImage

Charlie Sheen likens his 2011 spiral to ‘Demonic Possession’ — and calls sobriety a ‘relief’

“For me it was out of the question,” she explained. “I said ‘No’, I didn’t know that person. I only knew who I met. And that was a man who had been sober for four years. I didn’t judge him because of his past because I realized that his past made him who he is today . And the person I met was very different from the person who is the spiral…”

Although “lots of people” would Scary movie 3 Kudos to the actress for reforming the “bad boy,” Richards admitted that she “wouldn’t have dated him if I had met him when he was in his addiction, deep in his addiction.”

“He was sober and a completely different person. So that’s who I met,” she added.

Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen. Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic A timeline of Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen’s relationship

The host of the podcast of the same name asked if being sober with someone is ever “boring.”

“It wasn’t boring. I wasn’t a party person,” Richards shrugged. “I didn’t think, ‘Oh, f*ck. I just started dating Charlie Sheen and I just read all these crazy stories about him and how we shouldn’t [those things]?”

Despite Sheen’s controversial headlines, the reality star said she “didn’t know” which stories were true. “I just knew the person I met,” she said.

RHOBH star Denise Richards recalls divorce from Charlie Sheen while pregnant: ‘It was very toxic’

Richards and Sheen, 53, married in 2002 and split in 2005 when Richards was six months pregnant with Lola. (Richards is also the mother of 7-year-old Eloise, whom she adopted as a single mother in 2011.)

As fans will recall, it was a very public divorce – a divorce that only got worse after Sheen relapsed into drugs and alcohol, started rambling wildly about tiger blood and “winning” in 2011.

“[It was] extremely disheartening,” Richards told PEOPLE of their split in February 2019. “Times were extremely negative and I would have to say to myself, ‘This too shall pass.’ … I was never bitter about my divorce. Going through everything, it changed me. But I love life and I’m a glass-half-full kind of person. And I did my best to rise above.”

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Sheen eventually sobered up, and during an interview on ITV Relaxed women In 2019, he admitted that it was difficult for him to look back at the footage of his fall.

“The feeling is terrible. I can’t sit and lie to you,” he said. “Some of it is very surreal. To this day, I’m not sure how I created such chaos and ended up in that space. It’s like there’s some alien or demonic possession going on.”

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