Denise Lee Richards (ex wife of Charlie Sheen) was born in Downers Grove, Illinois, to Joni, a coffee shop owner, and Irv Richards, a telephone engineer, whose father’s surname was Reichert. Her mother died of cancer in November 2007. Her ancestry is German, French-Canadian, Irish, English, Welsh, and distant Dutch. She has a younger sister, Michelle.[10] Richards grew up in both Mokena and Downers Grove. As a child, she was the “only girl on the baseball team”.
When Richards was 15 years old, she and her family moved to Oceanside, California. In 1989, she graduated from El Camino High School.[10] She was voted best looking in her high school yearbook. Richards was raised Roman Catholic. After her high school graduation, she began working as a model and traveled to big cities such as Paris, New York, and Tokyo to do photo shoots and commercials.
