First she filed for divorce. Then she agreed to reconcile. Then she reinstated her divorce proceedings. Now, Denise Richards is explaining why.
In a 17-page court declaration, filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court (and available for perusal on the Smoking Gun), the actress laid out a series of shocking allegations against estranged husband Charlie Sheen, including claims regarding his dalliances with prostitutes, his drug and gambling addictions and his threats to harm, or even kill her.
"I am disappointed that the situation has deteriorated to the point that it has become necessary to seek the assistance of the court," Richards said in a statement Friday. "However, my primary concern is and always has been the welfare of the children and this action today was taken to ensure their safety as well as mine."
Sheen issued a statement of his own, decrying Richards' decision to go on the offensive.
"This is a most obvious immature and transparent smear campaign designed to hurt, embarrass and ultimately extort me," the Two and a Half Men star said Friday. "I deeply regret her response to my request for the court to decide what's best for our children has taken the form of baseless allegations that I deny. For the sake of my children, I am electing not to reciprocate in kind."
In her filing, Richards alleged that during their reconciliation last year, she discovered that Sheen had been visiting pornography Websites, featuring "very young girls, who looked underage to me, with pigtails, braces, no pubic hair, performing oral sex with each other," as well as sites "involving gay pornography also involving very young men who also did not look like adults."
She claimed she also learned that Sheen "had a madam" and belonged to several sex search sites on which he emailed pictures of "his erect penis" to prospective female partners. When she confronted him about his various Internet activities, she said he did not deny it, but told her to "go f--k [her]self."
Due to his alleged porn and prostitution habits, an allegedly severe sports gambling addiction, and a litany of other undesirable personality traits as laid out in her declaration, Richards said she was uncomfortable entrusting Sheen with their two daughters, two-year-old Sam and 10-month-old Lola.
In her original divorce filing, Richards sought full custody of the children with visitation rights for Sheen. Sheen, on the other hand, requested joint physical and legal custody.
According to Richards' declaration, things came to a head on Apr. 9, when she said she she told Sheen that if he proceeded with his threats to take her to court regarding overnight visitation with the girls, she would have no choice but to come out with the claims in her declaration.
She claimed Sheen told her "[she] would never get to court because [she] would be f--king dead!" and to enjoy her parents "while they are still around."
"I took this to mean that he was not only going to do me harm but also do harm to my parents," Richards stated.
In response to the alleged threats, Richards sought a temporary restraining order against Sheen and asked the court to require that his visits with the couple's daughters be monitored by a police officer, as well as by the children's nanny, or else be suspended altogether.
A judge granted the petition, ordering Sheen to keep at least 300 feet away and ruling that his visits with his children would be monitored.
Sheen responded with a declaration of his own on Friday, denying Richards' claims that he threatened her or her parents and requesting that the court authorize each half of the couple to tape future telephone conversations with the other.
Back in January, the warring twosome requested that their divorce proceedings be removed from Los Angeles Superior Court and placed in the hands of a private arbiter, presumably to keep the details of their split as discreet as possible.
If this is what they consider privacy, we'd hate to see what would happen if they took their battle public.