The Denise Richards divorce settlement with Aaron Phypers has not been finalized. As of mid-2026, the only money moving under a court order is $5,000 per month in temporary spousal support that Richards pays Phypers, plus $30,000 toward his divorce legal fees. Major pieces — division of a shared company, rights to Richards’s OnlyFans content, and Phypers’s claim to have parented Richards’s youngest daughter — are still open, and the case is running alongside four felony charges against Phypers and a five-year restraining order Richards obtained against him.
The Temporary Spousal Support Order
On February 26, 2026, Judge Nicole Bershon at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in Los Angeles ordered Richards to pay Phypers $5,000 per month in temporary spousal support, effective March 5, 2026. The judge itemized the amount: $2,000 for rent, $1,000 for a car, $1,000 for food, and $1,000 for miscellaneous expenses.
Richards was also ordered to pay $30,000 toward Phypers’s legal costs in three monthly $10,000 installments beginning at the end of March 2026. Of that total, $25,000 was designated for divorce attorney fees and $5,000 for a forensic accountant. Judge Bershon specifically ruled the money could not go toward Phypers’s separate criminal defense.
Richards’s attorney, Mark Gross, argued during the hearing that she should not have to pay support because she is a domestic violence victim. The judge ordered the temporary support anyway. The $5,000 figure sits far below the $105,000 monthly lifestyle Phypers had described in his filings. By April 2026, Richards appeared in court claiming she could not afford even the $5,000 payments.
What Each Side Asked For
The income gap between the two spouses drove the fight. Phypers claimed in court documents that Richards earns more than $250,000 per month from her OnlyFans account, television work, and brand deals. He reported his own income as zero, saying he had not earned anything since closing his wellness company, Quantum 360 Club, in 2024.
Phypers listed monthly household expenses of $105,000 that he said Richards had been covering during the marriage: $25,000 for food (split between $15,000 dining out and $10,000 groceries), $20,000 for clothing, $18,000 for rent on three leased townhouses, $15,000 for entertainment and vacations, $8,000 for utilities, $7,000 for childcare for Richards’s daughter Eloise, and $5,000 each for maintenance and laundry. He listed zero for insurance, savings, investments, or charity. He asked the court for spousal support and a 50/50 split of Smoke & Mirrors Entertainment, a company the couple shared.
Richards countered in a September 2025 filing, requesting that Phypers pay her spousal support and that the court terminate its jurisdiction to award him any.
Why There Is No Final Settlement
Several substantial issues remain unresolved, and each on its own could hold up a final judgment.
The OnlyFans dispute may be the largest. Phypers claims he photographed the content featured on Richards’s account and has asked the court to grant him a share of the earnings, which he estimates at $200,000 to $300,000 per month. Richards has gone back to court seeking to block him from accessing those earnings, arguing he missed a filing deadline for an updated income and expense declaration. No ruling on the OnlyFans issue has been reported.
Smoke & Mirrors Entertainment, the couple’s shared company, still needs to be divided. Phypers wants half.
Phypers is also fighting over Eloise, whom Richards adopted as an infant in 2011. Phypers says he raised Eloise for over nine years and claims Richards had him sign adoption papers that were never filed, leaving him without legal parental rights. Richards had previously stated publicly that Phypers adopted Eloise in 2019. No court ruling granting Phypers custody or legal parentage has been reported. The couple share no other children.
Final spousal support has not been set either. The $5,000 order is temporary.
The Restraining Order and Criminal Case
Eleven days after Phypers filed for divorce on July 7, 2025, Richards obtained a temporary domestic violence restraining order against him on July 16, 2025. She alleged he had “repeatedly abused me during the marriage” and “threatened to kill me and himself and the police,” and described specific incidents including a January 2022 punch that gave her a black eye, a spring 2022 assault at his wellness center, an April 2025 incident at a Chicago hotel in which she said he squeezed her head so hard it “felt like he was crushing my skull,” and physical altercations on July 4 and 5, 2025. She testified Phypers had caused her at least three concussions during the marriage, choked her, and threatened to throw her from hotel windows and balconies.
On November 7, 2025, a judge granted Richards a five-year restraining order set to expire in 2030. It bars Phypers from contacting her, owning firearms, or sharing her photos or information with media, and requires him to return a laptop and delete videos of Richards’s surgeries from his devices.
Phypers has denied every allegation. He testified: “I never physically harmed Denise Richards… I never threatened to harm her… I did not threaten to kill anybody.” He told TMZ that Richards was “creating a story to save her image.”
On October 16, 2025, California filed a criminal complaint against Phypers at the Van Nuys Courthouse charging four felony counts: two for injuring a spouse and two for dissuading a witness by force or threat. He was arrested the next day inside a Los Angeles courtroom during a restraining order hearing, booked at the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station, and released after posting $200,000 bail. His criminal defense attorney, Michael Finley, said he expected the charges to “be proven false.” The criminal case remains ongoing.
Phypers’s Debts and a Ruling Protecting Richards’s Assets
Phypers disclosed $850,000 in total debt in December 2025 court documents: $230,000 on a loan from Tom McMormack, $250,000 to High Velocity Admin, $180,000 in back rent and repairs to a landlord, $120,000 in back rent on a former office space, and $70,000 in attorney fees.
Separately, Creditors Adjustment Bureau had sued Phypers in 2022 over an unpaid loan and won a $228,000 default judgment in 2024. The collector then tried to seize Richards’s wages and assets to satisfy that judgment. On April 8, 2026, a Los Angeles judge denied the motion, ruling Richards was not financially responsible for debts Phypers incurred individually before or during the marriage because she had not incurred them herself. The denial was without prejudice, so the creditor could try again under different circumstances.
The Eviction
In December 2025, the couple’s landlord, John Karan, obtained a court order evicting both Richards and Phypers from a Calabasas rental over $84,000 in unpaid rent. Both had signed the 2020 lease, but Richards said she had moved out two years earlier and told Phypers he was responsible for rent starting in January 2025. The landlord issued a “pay or quit” notice in late August 2025 and filed a complaint in November after reportedly failing to reach Phypers for six months. A judge signed the default eviction order on December 26, 2025. The landlord also alleged the home had been “severely damaged.”
At the February 2026 support hearing, Phypers testified he had $200 to his name and owed $180,000 in back rent and damages. He later claimed in legal filings to be “on the verge of homelessness” and sought an emergency hearing to access marital assets.
Where the Case Stands
Richards and Phypers listed their date of separation as July 4, 2025, closing a marriage of just under seven years that began September 8, 2018, in Malibu. They appeared in court as recently as June 4, 2026. Asked how long the case might take to resolve, Richards’s attorney replied, “It’s hard to tell.” In April 2026, a judge granted Richards’s request to seal sensitive documents.
Until the court rules on Smoke & Mirrors, the OnlyFans earnings, final spousal support, and the Eloise question, there is no settlement to speak of — only the $5,000 monthly payment, the $30,000 fee award, and a criminal case moving on its own track.