Denise Richards has accused estranged husband Aaron Phypers of abuse, death threats and possession of unregistered weapons in a request for a temporary restraining order that was granted Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Phypers, who filed for divorce on July 7 and gave July 4 as the date of separation, has denied abusing Richards.
Richards’ TRO request, reviewed by The Times, refers to abuse that allegedly occurred during their marriage, including between July 4 and July 14, after she had moved out of the family home and into three townhouses that she uses separately as a studio, an office and her residence.
“Throughout our relationship, Aaron would frequently violently choke me, violently squeeze my head with both hands, tightly squeeze my arms, violently slap me in my face and head, aggressively slam my head into the bathroom towel rack, threaten to kill me, hold me down with his knee on my back to the point where I would have to plead with him to get off me so that he would not kill me,” Richards said in her filing.
She added that he “regularly threatened to ‘break my jaw’ and would cry, beg me to stay, and promise to get help — none of which ever happened.”
Richards alleged that Phypers gave her at least three concussions and regularly called her profane and degrading names. She also accused him of downloading her private text messages to her laptop and taking photos of the texts.
“Until now, I have been afraid to report Aaron to the police or file for a restraining order because he has repeatedly threatened to kill himself and me if I reported him to the police,” Richards said in the document, “among his other threats of harm to me and himself if he is reported for his abuse to anyone.”
She said he told her he had eight unregistered guns and some bulletproof vests.
Describing an incident from mid-April, she alleged that she had returned from a business trip and told Phypers he could not stay at the studio townhouse and had to leave. She locked the doors behind him.
While she was unpacking, Richards said in the filing, “Aaron climbed onto the balcony and pushed through the screen and entered the room I was in on the second floor. Once inside, Aaron aggressively approached me and grabbed the back of my head by my hair and pushed me on the ground and put his knee on my back so I could not get up. He would often do this. Aaron then screamed in my face.”
Richards said she told Phypers that she was going to call the police.
“[H]e responded, as he typically did, ‘Watch them try and take me away, they have no idea who they are dealing with and you have no idea who you are dealing with.’ When he refused to leave, I felt unsafe and chose to leave the premises.”
Richards also included photos of herself from January 2022 showing a severe black eye, which she alleged she got when Phypers hit her with “the heel of his palm” during an after-hours incident at his workplace.
There was yelling during the incident, which attracted a police officer who happened to be in the parking lot. After the officer left, Phypers “resumed screaming,” she said, then struck her and used profanity, calling her a derogatory name, she alleged in the filing.
Phypers, born Aaron William Cameron and referred to in the TRO request as Aaron William Cameron Phypers, has denied Richards’ allegations, telling TMZ in a statement Thursday that they are “false and deeply hurtful.” He told the website that he never abused her or anyone else physically or emotionally.
Phypers and actor Nicollette Sheridan of “Desperate Housewives” got married secretly in December 2015, but she filed for divorce six months later. That split wasn’t finalized until August 2018.
He and Richards began their relationship in 2017. They wed a little more than a year later in September 2018, a month after Phypers and Sheridan’s split was finalized, in a private ceremony in Malibu. Richards was previously married to “Two and a Half Men” star Charlie Sheen from 2002 to 2006.
For now, Phypers must stay 100 yards away from Richards and her car, workplace and home and cannot possess firearms or body armor. She requested that he return her laptops and asked for permission to record any phone calls that violate the stay-away order. A hearing on making the restraining order permanent is scheduled for Aug. 8.
Times staff writer Alexandra Del Rosario contributed to this report.
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