You might think you know Denise Richards, but she would beg to differ.
While her film resume includes memorable turns as a sex-crazed femme fatale in Wild Things and a hot-pants-clad nuclear physicist in The World Is Not Enough, she’s more famous lately for her messy divorce from Charlie Sheen.
The custody battle over the couple’s two daughters — Sam, 4, and Lola, 2 — has reached epic levels of public nastiness, with the accusations and name-calling from both sides becoming tabloid staples.
Most recently, Sheen went to court to try to block Richards from starring in her own reality show, claiming the venture would exploit the girls. The court disagreed, and Denise Richards — It’s Complicated is set to debut on E! May 26, and then will air regularly Sundays beginning June 1.
Richards took time from shooting to tell us how she is puzzled by the idea that the show will harm her children, and that it is merely an attempt by Sheen to portray her in a bad light by enforcing a double standard.
“People weren’t saying [the show is exploitive], my ex-husband was saying it,” she says pointedly. “It’s funny, people don’t say anything about the Kardashians, they don’t say anything about Deion Sanders, … the Osbournes, Snoop Dogg — they all have used their families. All of the other families doing reality shows, I haven’t read or heard anything about them exploiting their children.”
It’s not like the show is centered around the girls, Richards says. Viewers will get to see the business side of her life — taking meetings, doing photo shoots — as well as some more colourful moments, like when she visits Kat Von D of LA Ink for some tattoo work.
Family will definitely emerge as a theme, however. After Richards’ mother, Joni, died last year from cancer, her father, Irv, moved in with Richards and will be featured prominently on the show.
It was her mother, in fact, who inspired her to push ahead with the show after being approached by producer Ryan Seacrest.
“It had to have been so hard for my mom and dad [to read the tabloid stories],” Richards says, referring not only to Sheen’s comments, but to accounts that she stole best friend Heather Locklear’s husband, Richie Sambora. “My mom wanted people to see who I really was. I was negotiating to do it while she was sick, and then she passed away. So right after she died, I really made the firm decision that, you know what, I’m definitely going to do this, my mom wanted me to do this. I’m just going to go for it.”
Part of that commitment, however, includes going through the grieving process in front of a camera crew. Richards recalls one moment being particularly tough — when she and her father had to go through her mother’s things.
The benefits of the job, though, are worth it. She gets to support her family while spending time with her girls, which she says makes it the most fun she’s had working. She will be able to show people a side of her beyond what gets published in the tabloids, most of which she says is not true.
“I can’t change what people think. … Life is very short and I hope people can say, ‘Yes, we may have our opinion about this or judge this about her, but she did lose a parent, she is a single mother, she did go through a bitter divorce.’ I think that I’m very relatable to a lot of other families going through very similar things. If I can help anyone by sharing my experiences, having them see that no matter how hard it is you have to pick yourself up and move forward, that’s what I care about. … There’s always going to be that person who still thinks I stole my best friend’s husband. I can’t change that, nor do I care to. It’s not important to me. Not everyone’s going to like me, not everyone’s going to hate me and at least with the show, people will be able to see different parts of me. I could say it till I’m blue in the face, but people are going to believe what they want to believe.”
Richards says she is committed to keeping what the cameras capture “as real as possible.” That means no wacky setups, staged competitions, or — in what was difficult for the actress to get used to at first — no prepared lines to speak or marks to hit.
She trusts Seacrest to help make it all look good. She says she previously had been approached by others to do a reality show, but had declined until the American Idol host persuaded her.
“I’m so impressed by him,” she says. “He has more jobs than anyone I know, and he is just brilliant at what he does, and he’s very focused on every single job he is doing. He’s an amazing producer for us.”
As for whether It’s Complicated will turn into a multi-season gig, Richards says she’s open to the possibility. If it doesn’t, it probably won’t be because of Sheen’s call for people to boycott the show. If anything, Richards says, the controversy is more likely to intrigue viewers.
“He has brought attention to the show,” she says. “I think, if they love me or hate me, people will be curious about the show, and that’s a good thing.”