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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Caitlin Hornik

Denise Richards’ husband files for divorce four months after she said they never would — ‘even if we hate each other’

Denise Richards’s husband, Aaron Phypers, has filed for divorce after six years of marriage — and only months after the couple claimed they would never head down that path.

Phypers, 52, filed documents Monday in Los Angeles, according to US Weekly. Citing “irreconcilable differences,” the date of separation was listed as July 4. In the documents viewed by the outlet, Phypers requested spousal support and the return of his power tools.

Elsewhere in the divorce filing, Phypers revealed Richards’s alleged monthly income as $250,000. He claimed that he made zero dollars during the last year after he shut his business, US Weekly reported.

The couple do not share any children, though Phypers listed Richards’s daughter, Eloise, 14, as his stepdaughter.

Richards and Phypers began dating in June 2017 and were married in September 2018 in an impromptu ceremony documented on the ninth season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills — the Bravo show on which Richards had starred for years. Phypers, who practiced numerology, was intent on marrying Richards on September 8 because of the number’s infinity symbol significance.

News of the split comes just months after Richards, 54, said on the March premiere of her spin-off Bravo show, Denise Richards & Her Wild Things, with Phypers by her side: “I’ll never get divorced again, even if we hate each other.”

During that same episode, Richards admitted: “It’s not easy being married to me.”

Phypers jokingly agreed with the statement, emphasizing that his wife was the one who said it first.

Phypers, however, made it clear that he was sticking by his wife’s side.

“Yeah, I’m never getting divorced again,” Richards reiterated. “Even if we hate each other. I’m not going to f***ing get divorced.”

Phypers said that if necessary, he and his wife could just “get different homes.” However, he remained confident that they were “not gonna hate each other” throughout their marriage,” which Richards agreed with.

The Independent has contacted Phypers and representatives for Richards for comment.

Phypers was previously married to Desperate Housewives star Nicollette Sheridan for six months, while Richards was married to Charlie Sheen for four years, with whom she shares two daughters.

Wild Things star Richards has previously spoken out about getting divorced.

During an appearance on the Divorced Not Dead podcast in 2022, she opened up about choosing to end her marriage with Sheen, saying that she “felt guilty for splitting up the family unit.”

Richards added that she wouldn’t want her daughters married to someone like Sheen, which pushed her to make the decision.

“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?’” she explained.

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