Gregg DeGuire/WireImageAs if co-parenting with a divorced partner wasn't challenging enough, Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen now have teenagers on their hands.
The 48-year-old actress and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star and the 53-year-old former Two and a Half Men actor were married between 2002 and 2006 and split while she was pregnant with their second child, Lola, in 2005. She is now 13 and Richards and Sheen are also parents to daughter Sam, 15.
While their post-marital relationship has had its ups and downs, the two have remained dedicated to co-parenting their daughters, and naturally, compromises tend to be made. On a recent episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Richards tells Sam that she can't date until she's 16. She then calls Sheen to ask what he thinks and he tells her he would trust her judgment if a guy asked her out to a dance.
"What didn't air was Charlie saying he wanted supervision on the party bus that they wanted to take and all the other stuff that was involved, and he wanted to meet the boy which, that didn't happen either," Richards said on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills After Show on Tuesday. "I did let her go. But it's hard raising teenagers, especially in Los Angeles. It's a very different thing, growing up here."
Richards and co-star Lisa Rinna also discussed the issue of allowing their kids to have cell phones.
"I took the phone away from my kid and her dad was in total agreement on the phone with me about it and he supported it," Richards said. "The next day, a new phone number."
"Oh, he got her a new phone?" Rinna asked.
"Yeah," Richards said. "And that's hard."
"Here's the problem: It's gonna hurt her," Rinna said. "That's being wishy-washy. So she sees that as, unless you guys are a united front, she's gonna go, 'Well, I'm gonna get away with anything.'"
"I think a lot of parents who are divorced are probably going through this," Richards said. "Especially when they become teenagers. It's really difficult. If they are gonna experiment with drugs, it's usually then. Or alcohol. Or have sex for the first time."
"When I was growing up, my father worked for the f--king phone company so he would tap the line, so he would know when we were lying," she said. "They would let us sneak out and they would show the f--k up at the party and I'd be like, 'How did my parents know?'
In addition to Sam and Lola, Richards also has an adopted daughter, Eloise, 7, and Sheen has three children from past relationships.