Denise Richards is setting the record straight. She was “upset” after her now-20-year-old daughter Sami launched her own OnlyFans account at 18 — but it’s not for the reason you might expect. While some moms might be worried about their children making money on the sexually explicit platform, the Wild Things star is totally fine with it. The only problem? Other people’s reaction to her daughter’s risqué business endeavors.
“At first, I didn’t understand what OnlyFans was,” Richards said in a new cover interview with PEOPLE. But then she learned more about it, and when she saw the backlash, her mama bear claws came out. “When I saw that she was getting backlash for owning her sexuality and doing what she wanted to do, it upset me as a mom and also as a woman in business,” Richards explained.
Good for her! After all, Sami is an adult, and there is nothing wrong with adults making money on OnlyFans, where they can choose if they want to sell photos, videos, livestreams, and more, and if and how much nudity to show. In fact, Richards is so OK with it, she made an OnlyFans account herself, which she says is “quite lucrative.”
In the interview, Sami shared her thoughts on the matter: “I wish she’d waited a bit because she started it right after me but it doesn’t bother me.” Richards’ daughter Lola, who was recently baptized in the Christian church, added, “Whatever makes her happy.”
This laissez-faire attitude is a marked change from Richards’ reported feelings when Sami first launched the account. In 2023, a source told PEOPLE that Sami referring to herself as a “sex worker” is reportedly “causing a lot of drama” at home.
According to the insider, Richards “knows her daughter is not a sex worker. She’s just saying outrageous things. She doesn’t even show any skin on OnlyFans. Sami has 4,000 followers. So she’s making $80,000 a month doing almost nothing and barely showing anything. She’s just teasing the audience. She’s not really doing any nudity at all. So this is just her titillating people by saying that.”
The source, who revealed that Richards makes “$2 million a month” on her own OnlyFans account, added, “Denise says she wants to support her daughter. She believes that when they turn 18, it’s really hard to control what they do. You can only advise them. And Denise realizes she did Playboy herself — OnlyFans is just the modern version of that.”
The former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star shares Sami and Lola with ex Charlie Sheen. She is also mom to daughter Eloise, 13, who she adopted as an infant. The teen has a chromosomal disorder that has caused some developmental delays, but as Richards notes, she holds the family together. “Eloise is very observant and understands everything,” she told PEOPLE in the new cover story. “Sometimes when the girls go at each other, she just raises her eyebrows and then they laugh and can get past whatever stupid thing they’re fighting about.”
The former Playboy model, who is now married to Aaron Phypers, opened up about her 2005 split from Sheen and how it affected her daughters. “They’ve been through a lot,” she said. “I did my best to shelter them. There were times they were upset with me, but I tell them there’s no handbook. I did the best I could under the circumstances.”
Right now, Richards is just happy to be working with her daughters on their new reality series, Denise Richards & Her Wild Things, which premieres on March 4 on Bravo. On Tori Spelling’s misSPELLING podcast in Aug. 2024, she said her family’s decision to be on a reality show was “a big decision.”
“So this was a long time, with all of us talking about it because I wanted to make sure that the girls were really wanting to do it,” she continued. “We’ve opened up our lives and we’re doing it right now and trying to navigate all of that. So, they were excited about it. We had several meetings and talking, and, so we’re doing that now.”
She added, “I’m excited that we’re doing it and I think it’s fun, and it’s a great opportunity for us as a family to do something together, too.”
Before you go, check out these celebrity moms who have matching tattoos with their kids.
