CRAIG SJODIN/ABCDenise Richards may be a contestant on the new season of Dancing With the Stars, but this certainly wasn't the first time producers came calling.
"When they asked me to do it originally, my mom was still [alive] and both my parents were like, 'You're going to get voted off right away because women hate you,' " Richards tells me as she's making breakfast for her daughters, Sam and Lola. "And I thought, 'They're right. This may not be a good time to do the show.' Granted, a lot of them still hate me, but hopefully they hate me less. Time has gone by."
Richards, who has been filming the second season of her E! reality show during her training with dance partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy, says she was finally ready to take the plunge this time around because, quite simply, "I'm at a place where I just want to live my life. What's the worst thing that could happen? What's the worst thing that people could say?"
Fortunately, she hasn't been hit by the Dancing curse à la Jewel and Nancy O'Dell. "Knock on wood, I haven't had any injuries," she says. "My feet hurt a little bit from being in heels all day, but other than that I feel really great physically."
Worst thing she says is her never-ending appetite. "We rehearse like six, seven hours a day, and I'm starving," she says. "I can't stop eating."
But the Dancing regime is bound to keep her in killer shape. So any chance that would lead to a second spread in Playboy? "I never say never," Richards says. "I don't want to sit here and say, 'I'll never do it again' and then a year from now you see me doing Playboy. But right now, I don't have any intentions."
As for how Sam and Lola are dealing with their dad Charlie Sheen expecting twin boys this spring with his wife, Brooke, Richards says they couldn't be happier.
"They talk about the boys all the time," Richards says. "They each have picked one. Sam has picked her brother and Lola has picked hers. Sam named her brother Duke and Lola named her brother Zoe. [Laughs.] I have no idea what Charlie and Brooke will end up naming the boys, but that's what my daughters have come up with. They're very cute and they're very excited. They'll be great big sisters."