After having her personal life splayed across the public arena, Denise Richards isn’t ready to put up any guards. In fact, she’s projecting her life as a single, working mom in Hollywood on to the small screen with a new E! reality show that is co-executive produced by friend Ryan Seacrest.
“I made a commitment to do this show, and I want it to be as real as possible — and that’s what it is,” she told PEOPLE Saturday at The Wiggles Live concert at the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live. “Everyone has a perception of me, and I’m hoping that people will get to see my life and I think I relate to a lot of people.”
Richards points to being a mom, going through a “difficult” divorce with ex-husband Charlie Sheen and losing her mother to cancer as aspects of her life that audiences will relate to.
“See what it’s like to be a single mom raising two daughters and juggling a career … And just recently my dad moved into my house, so it’s balancing all of that. For me it’s the greatest job. I’m having so much fun!”
Seacrest revealed some of the fun when he told PEOPLE that Richards goes on a blind date and that she and daughters Sam, 4, and Lola, 2, get a new pet. “I’m not sure how much I’m supposed to say, but all I can say is [the pet's] name is Bob. And he is fantastic! I love Bob!”
But dating is another story. “I don’t like dating. I really don’t,” she says of her recent experience. “I find it painful. I’m not good at it … He was a lovely man but I was very uncomfortable.”
Richard also addressed her decision to include her young daughters, as well as her dates, on the show.
After Sheen tried to prevent Richards from having Sam and Lola appear in the footage but lost that battle in court, he called for a boycott of the reality show.
“I’m in a no-win situation,” Richards explains. “If I don’t have my children in my show, then people will say ‘Well, she’s really not a hands-on mom.’ If I do have my children, people are saying that I’m exploiting them. And I think there’s plenty of reality shows with families, where you don’t watch them — at least I never did — and think they really exploited their kids.” –Jed Dreben
Wendi Kaminski/Andrew D. Bernstein Assoc
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