Denise Richards Breaks Down in Court, Claims Aaron Phypers ‘Almost Killed Me’

Denise Richards is taking the stand against Aaron Phypers.

On Monday, Oct. 6, the exes attended a hearing relating to the temporary restraining order Richards, 54, was granted in July, and to follow-up on Phypers’ surrendering of his firearms. While giving her testimony to the court, the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum, 54, got emotional thinking back on the alleged abuse in their relationship.

She claimed that Phypers “would often threaten to throw me through the windows and off balconies” of hotels and tearfully stated: “He’s almost killed me so many damn times.”

Earlier that day, Richards explained what led to their split on July 4, when she asked Phypers, 53, to leave their shared townhouses.

“He got very angry at me and volatile, he got very close to me,” Richards claimed. “I had just recovered from a full facelift and I still had stitches behind my ears, and I felt extremely vulnerable.”

“He would get as close as a couple of inches from my face,” she alleged of how their arguments would turn physical.

“He would grab my arms and he would yell, call me names,” such as “cheating whore and a c— and a lying bitch,” she stated.

Richards said she was feeling “extremely vulnerable and in pain,” and suggested Phypers go stay at their old house, where his family was living at the time. That night, she ended up leaving their shared townhome and sleeping on her office sofa next door.

“Emotionally, it was hard for me to understand,” she shared. “Especially with having what he has done for a living, working in the wellness space, that he would know how much that this would affect me emotionally too. And it just made me feel vulnerable, it made me feel scared, it made me feel sad. It made me feel intimidated by him. He’s very big.”

“I’m a lot smaller than him,” she noted.

The next day, on July 5, Phypers and his father came into the room where she was sleeping and allegedly threatened to release naked photos found on Richards’ phone in April. She also claimed Phypers took the back of his left hand and hit the back of her left ear before he left.

“I was wearing a baseball cap. My head moved, he flipped the hat off very aggressively,” she testified. “I still had stitches on one side of the ear… which caused some bleeding and so much pain because I had incisions on both sides.”

She claimed she told Phypers that he “hurt” her, but he allegedly denied it: “He said, ‘I didn’t touch you,’ and he turned around and walked away with his dad.”

Richards said she called Phypers’ mom and began to dial 911, but Phypers allegedly threatened her by saying, “Something very dangerous is going to happen to you. You’re going to disappear.”

In September, after Richards got a temporary restraining order against Phypers, they had another incident at her townhouse when he returned to take his laptop. She accused him of asking for her phone, which she hid in her shorts.

He “grabbed me by both arms and then pushed me down on the stairs,” she alleged before claiming Phypers left with his laptop, along with her purse and credit cards.

Other incidents allegedly occurred several months prior as well, including one night in April when the pair were at a hotel in Chicago for ComicCon. Richards stated that Phypers brought up her previous texts with another man and started “grabbing me, pushing me down.”

She claimed “his fingers were around my face” and she told him that he was going to “give me a bruise.” She also allegedly said, “Please stop, you’re hurting me.”

The following month, Richards was staying at a hotel in Los Angeles after having a seven-hour surgery on her breasts and stomach. She claimed she fell asleep and gave Phypers her laptop password to watch TV but was quickly woken up by him “being very hostile and aggressive” about her messages with another man.

“He sat me down on the toilet and I was shaking, holding my phone on my lap,” Richards alleged. “He said, ‘Give me your f—— phone.'”

He then allegedly “hit me with his right hand” and the drain for her surgery recovery was damaged. Crying, Richards said she asked why Phypers hit her and he allegedly replied, “I didn’t hit you, I need your f—— phone.”

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In a July court filing obtained by PEOPLE, Richards alleged that Phypers, whom she wed in 2018, would “frequently violently choke me,” “violently slap me in my face and head, aggressively slam my head into the bathroom towel rack, threaten to kill me, hold me down with his knee on my back to the point where I would have to plead with him to get off me so that he would not kill me.”

She also alleged that he “regularly threatened to ‘break my jaw’ and would cry, beg me to stay, and promise to get help — none of which ever happened,” in the filing.

She was granted a temporary restraining order on July 16, 11 days after Phypers filed for divorce citing “irreconcilable differences.”

Phypers refuted Richards’ claims in a Sept. 15 filing, as he alleged that she “attacked” and “harassed” him “many times” and provided screenshots of his call history, which showed dozens of missed calls from her after the temporary restraining order had been approved.

“I have not abused her and will not abuse her,” he reiterated in the filing, as he said Richards has been “frequently” calling and messaging him and his father. “As well as asking other family and friends to ask me to call her so often that it should be considered harassment, demonstrating that she is not afraid of me and that she is the aggressive one.”

The couple last appeared in court on Sept. 8, and Phypers was ordered to stay 100 yards away from one of their homes, per the temporary restraining order, while Richards was given access to one of their shared properties so she could “retrieve her mother’s and her own personal property, including the dogs.”

Phypers was also granted access to their townhouse and office so he could retrieve his belongings, and was ordered to give his ex back her laptop and old cell phone, which he has denied being in possession of.

Phypers has also repeatedly denied Richards’ claims that he abused her. In a statement hours after she was granted the temporary restraining order, he told PEOPLE, “I have never physically or emotionally abused Denise — or anyone. These accusations are completely false and deeply hurtful.”

“Denise and I, like many couples, have faced our share of challenges, but any suggestion of abuse is categorically untrue,” he added. “I have always tried to approach our marriage with love, patience, and respect.”

He later claimed that she cheated on him earlier this year, as he told TMZ he found text messages on her phone that alerted him to the alleged infidelity.

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.