Denise Richards Reveals Her Daughters ‘Were Very Upset’ She Joined Special Forces: ‘They Were Afraid’ (Exclusive)

Denise Richards is revealing what she did to get on her daughters’ bad side!

The actress, 53, recently spoke with PEOPLE about her participation in the upcoming season of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test, and she shared how her three kids reacted to the news.

Explaining that the show mimics military-style survival challenges, Richards says daughters Sami, 20, Lola, 19, and Eloise, 13, tried to talk her out of joining.

“My daughters were very upset,” she admits. “They did not want me to do it. They were afraid I was going to get hurt or get killed, and they were actually really angry. It was the first time of all the times I’ve done different projects or traveled they were very upset with me.”

Still, Richards says she wanted to take the risk and push her own limits, despite being nervous.

“I’m not athletic at all — I was so intimidated by everyone,” Richards explains. “I didn’t know who was going to be there, but I did hear there were some athletes, and I can’t compete with that. But that’s the greatest thing too, is it’s not about competing against anybody but myself, and that’s why they strip us down raw, physically and mentally and emotionally and all of that.”

“I thought, ‘This is the most challenging thing I’ll ever do, and why not do it?’” she adds. “I was terrified, but once I made the commitment to do it, I was there.”

Richards shares her older daughters, Sami and Lola, with her ex-husband Charlie Sheen. She later adopted Eloise in 2011, and her current husband, Aaron Phypers, began the process of legally adopting Eloise following their surprise Malibu wedding in 2018.

Fans will have the opportunity to get a deeper look into Richards’ relationship with her children in her new reality show, Denise Richards and the Wild Things. In August, she joined Tori Spelling on her misSPELLING podcast to talk about what to expect from the E! series.

“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,” Richards said, going on to note that the show puts the family in the position to “open up [their] lives.” 

“We’re doing it right now and trying to navigate all of that,” she continued, saying that the girls are “excited about it.”

“We had several meetings,” the Drop Dead Gorgeous star said. “I was very proud of the girls that they were asking so many questions that they really wanted to be involved in now.”

The news comes 16 years after Richards’ previous E! Show, Denise Richards: It’s Complicated, which followed her and her family amid her divorce from ex-husband Sheen in 2008. She briefly returned to reality television on Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, when she appeared as a main cast member in seasons 9 and 10 before leaving the franchise in September 2020.

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Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test season 3 premieres with a two-hour episode on Wednesday, Jan. 8 at 8 p.m. ET on Fox.