My mom raised my sister and me to be able to take care of ourselves. She never wanted us to have to depend on a man. I guess that’s partly why I’ve always been career-oriented and focused on being able to take care of myself financially. I always wanted to get married and have a family, but first I wanted to establish my career.
Not that I was ever anti-man. No way. I had some wonderful loves before I got married, and after. I’ve had great relationships with men, and I am still friendly with every ex-boyfriend. I have fond memories with all of them, and some not so fond, which is to be expected. But those have made me stronger and smarter. When a relationship ends, I don’t see it as a failure. I believe there’s always a reason we came together. I tell girlfriends that all the time. Look for the reason you were brought together. What did you enjoy? What did you learn?. It forces you to see something positive when you’re going through the pain of a breakup, and later on, after the hurt fades, you have those better memories.
Before I was married, I believed we had only one soul mate in life. I credit my parents for that notion. They truly were soul mates. At the time of my divorce, they had been married more than thirty years and still held hands when they walked, still had date nights, and still were each other’s best friend. After divorcing, I changed my tune. I didn’t want to think that by my midthirties it was the end of my love life, that I’d never find a soul mate, and now I’m of the opinion that we have more than one soul mate and each special relationship is a beautiful journey with lessons to be learned.
If I sound romantic, it’s because I am. I love being in love. I follow my heart even now after my difficult divorce.
Breakups can be incredibly painful, and the more in love, the harder the breakup. Looking back at my past relationships, they’ve taught me about men, about myself, and about life, and the lessons started early. I am thinking about my first serious relationship in high school—with James. We were your typical high school sweethearts. He was one grade ahead of me. We dated from my sophomore year until I was eighteen. He was a surfer, a hard-core surfer. I knew that at early morning and at dusk he was in the ocean. He even worked in a surf shop.
He was my first love, and when he graduated and I had a year left at high school without him, it was difficult being there. Away from school, we were together all the time. When I started to model, James often drove to L.A. with me for calls and photo shoots. During my first trip to Japan after graduation, we spoke as often as we could afford. At the beginning, our conversations lasted upward of two hours. Toward the end, they were two minutes. One time I called him and he answered, “Who’s this?”
What the hell did he mean, “Who’s this?” I was his girlfriend of three years! I had a sick feeling in my stomach after that call. I have good intuition, but I ignored it. We talked a few times after that, and before I flew home, I could hear him being distant. Something was up—or I should say something was evident beneath the surface. My roommate thought he was cheating on me. I thought she was crazy. There was no way James would cheat on me.
Standing next to my parents at the airport, he was all hugs and kisses welcoming me back home. He even gave me a bunch of little gifts. Later, my sister said he’d cheated on me the entire time I was gone, and I was devastated. I took those gifts to the surf shop where he worked and threw them in his face. That was the end of James.
He wanted to stay together, but there was no way in hell I could trust him again, and I didn’t want to be with a guy who was going to cheat the minute I left town. But my anger quickly gave way to sadness, and I spent quite a few nights crying my eyeballs out. My dad came into my bedroom and tried to cheer me up. “I hate to tell you, this isn’t going to be your only heartache,” he said. “You’ll have more.”
If he was trying to make me feel better, he didn’t. “I will never feel like this again,” I argued. “I won’t let it happen.” Of course my father was right; he could’ve had a softer approach with me, but he was right on. In my twenties, I concentrated on my career, and I usually met guys when I was working on set or through my friends. I was a little naïve when I first moved to L.A. It was definitely a time of figuring things out, learning about the kind of man I was attracted to, learning about men in general, discovering the dynamics of dating and relationships, and preparing to find Mr. Right. Gradually, I began to develop a sense of the type of guy I wanted, the type of guy that made me happy, and the type of guy I wanted to please.
In my early twenties, I didn’t have any responsibilities other than work, I could come and go as I pleased, and for the most part I wasn’t too serious about anyone. It was all about hot guys and hot sex (and safe sex, I should add), dressing up, and having fun with nice people. As I matured, I discovered more about what I liked and needed. I realized I love a man, a real man, a guy’s guy—someone who’ll have my back and protect me, is loyal and kind, and makes me laugh.
I love a man who enjoys even the simple things, too, like staying up all night talking and eating ice cream in bed. And I insist on a great sexual connection, too, of course. You know Rihanna’s song, “Only Girl”? That’s how I want to feel with my man, that I’m the only girl—even if I’m not.
Aside from various boyfriends, and wonderful friends with a few benefits, I didn’t get serious with anyone until I met Patrick Muldoon. I call him Pat. Actually, we call each other Shweet-babe. I know, it’s silly, but to this day it’s still Shweetbabe. As I said earlier, I met Pat in an acting class when I was nineteen, and we dated on and off for a few years while also dating other people. We didn’t train our eyes solely on each other until we worked together on Starship Troopers, a six-month shoot where we got to know each other quite well, though it didn’t happen easily.
That was the time everyone was reading the book The Rules. If they weren’t reading it, they were talking about it. Such as my best friend, who kept telling me that I shouldn’t be too interested in Pat. According to her, he had to pursue me, and the way to get him to do that was to play it cool. I was maybe too cool, which was dumb. Pat is gorgeous, and I hope he’ll forgive me for being this honest, but he kind of knew it, which can be a good quality if a man plays that with a quiet confidence. And Pat did. Girls threw themselves at him, and he handled them with an easy charm. In the meantime, I was so busy not throwing myself at him that he thought I didn’t like him.
Not that he didn’t try. He’d invite me out, but because he didn’t ask me out on Wednesday for Saturday night, my girlfriend insisted I say I was busy. On Saturday, of course, I was home alone, wondering why I’d said I was busy. She also said I could only call him back after he called three times, but by the time I called him back, I was into that whole Wednesday-Saturday cycle. Seeing I was frustrated—I wonder why—she suggested I take a sexy dress to the set and get ready after we wrapped so Pat would see me leave all dressed up and think I had a hot date. I thought it was crazy, but I did it, and I felt like an ass leaving the set all dolled up only to meet my girlfriends for dinner.
I also went on a few dates with a guy—he called me early in the week so I was allowed to go—which pissed off Pat. In return, he brought a girl to the set, which, of course, angered me. All of a sudden we were pissed off at each other. Finally, I said screw The Rules, we talked, and everything came out. We told each other how we felt, and from then on Pat and I were officially together. And for the record, my girlfriend is still single.
To this day Pat is one of my best friends—and always will be. We went through too much together, from the early days of our relationship when no one knew either of us, through the making of Wild Things, whose risqué scenes were rough on Pat and caused a few fights, which we survived. But the Bond movie took a toll on us. Even though he made many trips to see me, and I flew home when I could, six months in London was a long time to be away from home. When the picture wrapped, we were still together—but barely.
Pat had a slight jealous side to him, and it was difficult for him when other men paid attention to me. One ti
me we were at a premiere for one of his movies, and a guy was too forward with me. He grabbed my ass and Pat put his fist into the guy’s head. The bouncer nearly booted him from his own party. In the end, the ass grabber was the one who got tossed onto the sidewalk, and everything worked out—except us.
My visibility and newfound fame as a “sex symbol” put a strain on our relationship. For me, it was my job. I was able to separate the two. Pat had a difficult time. To appease him, I found myself downplaying exciting things going on in my career. I wanted Pat to know how much I loved him and how much he meant to me. Ultimately we broke up, and it was one of my hardest breakups.
Actually, it wasn’t a clean break. We got back together, broke up, and went back and forth like that for a while. Then I met Charlie.
2
AFTER CHARLIE, MY perspective on relationships was no longer the same as when I was in my twenties. I would’ve been in trouble if it had been. I’d been married, divorced, had two children, and I was in my thirties. I was in a different place compared to where I was when I’d met Charlie. I had major responsibilities, and before I considered my needs, I thought about my children, and the big picture, which you do as a parent, and that caused the little, petty crap that might’ve bothered me ten years earlier to not matter as much, if at all.
Richie understood the challenges and priorities of being a single parent. He was married to Heather Locklear and they have one daughter. And to clarify, yes, I was friendly with his ex, but only for a brief time, and my friendship with her had ended prior to anything that happened between Richie and me. That’s the truth. I did not break up a marriage. It was already over. Had she and I still been friends, I never would have crossed that line with him. Ever.
My relationship with Richie happened when I least expected it, though running into him may have been inevitable. In fact, I’m surprised it hadn’t happened before. He lived two minutes from me. During our conversation in the parking lot, I found out he was home while on break from Bon Jovi’s latest tour, and with both of us going through divorces, we decided to catch up, and we traded phone numbers.
Soon we talked on the phone. Not surprisingly, we shared a lot of common experiences and concerns. Among other things, we were going through divorces, we knew each other’s spouses, we worried about our children, we came from tight families with parents who’d been married forever, and we had stories about going through a divorce. Then there was the everyday stuff. Quite simply, it was a relief to speak openly about everything and know it would stay between the two of us.
After that first conversation, we were dialing each other daily, if not several times a day. In all the time I knew Richie when we were both married, I never looked at him in a romantic way. I was married and in love with my husband. No one was more surprised than I was when I began to think about him in a different way. There was nothing wrong with that, I told myself. We were both single. He was smart, funny, sensitive, and sympathetic. I knew he was starting to have strong feelings for me, too—and this was just over the phone. It was a dilemma, and for many reasons I wished those feelings hadn’t been there.
But they were real, and when Richie suggested getting together in person, I had to make a complicated decision. It was either move forward with this friendship or stop talking to him altogether. There was no in-between. My heart told me to see him, but my head said to run in the other direction. Deep down, I already knew what I was going to do. The problem was avoiding the paparazzi that followed me every day as soon as I ventured beyond my gate.
But Richie and I hatched a plan. I snuck out late at night; my SUV had dark-tinted windows, making it nearly impossible for any photographers to get a shot if they were still waiting outside my gate at that hour. Then, for me to get through his gate without the guard seeing me, Richie waited in his car outside his gate and I followed him in without stopping to give my name. It worked.
Our visit, which followed weeks of conversations on the phone and anticipation of this get-together, was magical. We did nothing but talk for five hours. I left after that and we arranged to get together a few days later. We talked on the phone several times a day. We had code names for each other. I was Lucy, and he was Jack. If I didn’t answer my phone, he’d say it was Jack calling for Denise. Jack also sent flowers. And Lucy did the same when Jack was back on tour. Under this veil of playful but necessary secrecy, our romance blossomed.
Richie and I shared an easiness I hadn’t before had. We were able to be open, honest, and completely authentic with each other, with no judgment. It was refreshing to not have to hide any aspect of myself, or to pretend. I felt as if I were taking my first breaths of fresh air in ages. But there was a slight problem with our being together. Given the circumstances with his soon-to-be-ex-wife, I knew that news of our relationship was not going to play well. It was dangerous territory.
I agonized about the situation and potential fallout. Technically we weren’t doing anything wrong. We were both single, getting divorced. I couldn’t deny how I felt about him and how he made me feel, and he felt the same way.
Whenever Richie had a break from Bon Jovi’s tour, he flew back to L.A. and we rendezvoused at one of our houses. He still waited outside the gate for me at his place, though slowly we got brave enough to where I went through his gate without an escort. One time I drove to his gate and the guard said, “Hi, Denise.” I said hello and explained I was going to Richie’s. “But I don’t have you down here,” he said, checking his list. “All I have is Lucy.”
That was odd. Every other time I’d come over, Richie had cleared my name. Slightly flustered, I stupidly said Lucy was in the backseat of my car, thinking he’d let me go through. But, nope, he asked if I could roll down the window so he could see her. At that point, I was dying. “You can’t really see her,” I said. “She’s tiny.” He wouldn’t let up. He craned his neck to try to see around me and into the backseat. Finally, with my face red and sweaty, I blurted out, “I’m Lucy!” With a complicit nod, he said, “Oh,” and opened the gate.
It was funny—but just the start of complications.
3
AT THIS POINT, only a few close friends, family members, and the guards at our respective gates knew about our relationship. One day Charlie was visiting the girls (they were babies at this point) at my house when Richie called. My housekeeper answered and came into the room. In front of Charlie, she said Richie was on the phone. He’d forgotten to say Jack. Charlie’s eyes widened; he wasn’t stupid.
But it turned out fine. As we continued forward through the minefield of our breakup, Charlie began a relationship with Brooke Mueller. I was happy for him and made it a priority to develop a good rapport with her. I advise women whose exes get involved with other women to do the same: establish a friendship. Life is calmest when everyone gets along.
When Charlie got serious with Brooke, I wanted to meet her. Whether I liked Brooke or not, which I did, or still had issues with Charlie, was beside the point. For me, it was all about doing what was best for my children. When they came home one day and told me she had given them candy when Daddy didn’t know, I wasn’t mad. I understood she was trying to bond with my girls. She wanted them to like her.
The next time our nanny brought the girls to Charlie’s, I gave her a package for Brooke with a bunch of girly stuff I knew Sam and Lola liked, including makeup and dress-up items—stuff she could do with the girls. I also enclosed a note telling Brooke that I looked forward to meeting her and was glad Charlie was happy.
I meant every word. I didn’t feel threatened that this woman was going to play with my girls. Nor did I worry whether they’d like her, which they did. I wanted Sam and Lola to be surrounded by love. Sure, it was odd at first. But that was normal and it lessened over time. That November I hosted everyone at Thanksgiving dinner. Charlie brought Brooke, Richie was my date, my parents were there, and my sister and her family filled out the rest of the table.
Talk about an interesting evening. But it was t
he best thing for Sam and Lola to see us all getting along and enjoying a wonderful “family” holiday together. Of course, everyone talked privately after dinner. Don’t all families? But the children had a great time, gave hugs and kisses afterward, and went to bed to a chorus of “I love you.”
I kept inviting Charlie for dinner, and he came. If we had a conflict, I told him to “put our shit aside, turn that frown upside down, and whistle ‘Dixie’ out your ass if you have to. I don’t care if you hate me, but fake it in front of the kids. We need to present a mom and dad who can be friendly with each other, which will give them a sense of security.” Sometimes it worked. Other times it didn’t go so well. At least I tried.
Alone, I had my share of anger, hurt, and frustration. I vented to my parents and trusted girlfriends, but for one dinner or a Sunday brunch I could suck it up.
Despite those efforts, though, we had our ups and downs, and our divorce turned hostile. Then it got worse; it got toxic. Charlie and I have extremely different views about the way children should be raised and the kind of environment that’s healthy for them. I wanted my girls to have a great relationship with their dad, but during times that I didn’t think were appropriate for two young, impressionable girls, it was my job as their mom to be protective. He disagreed.
It’s public knowledge that I filed for a restraining order, but what’s not known is that two previous times I tried to handle things privately.
But by spring 2006, things hadn’t changed and it had gotten so bad I couldn’t take it anymore and I filed with the court. That was a very scary time for me because I was told that if I filed with the court, the records wouldn’t be sealed, but I felt like I had no choice. And that’s when everything exploded. From that day on, my life was never the same.
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