[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
Jenny McCarthy brought Denise Richards on her podcast this week, and get ready, because the discussion is innnnnntense.
Denise opens up about her time with Aaron Phypers, and how much the experience has changed her as a person.
As those who’ve been following her story know, she and Aaron met in 2017 and got married in 2018. Aaron filed for divorce in 2025, but it has not yet been finalized.
Denise currently has a restraining order against Aaron, and he faces criminal charges stemming from alleged domestic violence incidents with her back in 2022. He denies all accusations of physical abuse.
On Monday, a new episode of The Jenny McCarthy Wahlberg Show dropped, and Denise is now sharing even more details about their marriage.
Related: Denise Says She Found Out She Was Paying For Aaron’s Mistress
Feeling “deep pain” and “regret” over the relationship, Denise claims the abuse was insidious — that he was even allegedly surveilling her:
“I did text another guy towards the end of our relationship. I wasn’t intimate with him. I didn’t even see him. I was actually trying to get out. Uh so I wasn’t dating him. Never saw him. And Aaron actually knows that. He saw every single text message. He had surveillance on me for two years that I did not know until during the divorce, the separate whatever it’s called during this time. And um so he but I feel like he was like, ‘Aha, I got something on her. Oh, she can be the bad guy now.'”
She also claims, while discussing the importance of documenting abuse (taking photos of bruises, for example), that he would sometimes take her devices and delete things he didn’t like from her own phone! That’s why she says she’s glad she also emailed the photos to an old email account of hers.
Not only that, she also alleges:
“He was very savvy. He had stuff where he was able to put things on my devices.”
Jenny then asks if she means things that could track her, to which she says, “yeah.”
At one point in their time together, Aaron’s family had moved in with them. Because of this, Jenny wondered if they ever helped her out or witnessed the abuse, but Denise says:
“The abuse started, the verbal [abuse] started before they got down, and he did hit me before they came down, but [he] was like “omg I can’t believe I did that to you I’m so sorry”. Then it would be really good for a period and then something physical would happen [again]. But when they moved down that’s when it went horrendous. … As a matter of fact I remember screaming for them because he locked me in the bedroom and I was screaming and I was like why aren’t they helping me?”
Her hope in talking about all of this publicly is that it helps others going through similar experiences:
“Because I want to help other people. I was gonna wait until everything was over, I don’t know when that’s gonna be, so f**k it, I want to share. I was also, when I filed that [RO], scared of the judgement from other people. There’s a lot of shame being in an abusive relationship and feeling like how could I let this [happen] because I am a strong woman. There’s layers.”
Watch the episode in full below:
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, help is available. Consider calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233, or text START to 88788, or go to https://www.thehotline.org/.
[Image via YouTube/Jenny McCarthy Wahlberg Show.]
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