Charlie Sheen has apologized for using a racial slur in a voice mail to Denise Richards.
Messages from an angry Sheen to Richards started surfacing on the Internet earlier this week.
In one of the messages, dated April 19, 2005, the “Two and A Half Men” star can be heard ending a call by referring to his ex in a host of aspersions including the C-word and the N-word.
Sheen quickly responded to the leaked voicemails, apologizing for using such language.
“I deeply apologize by my choice of words to all I have obviously offended; especially to Tony Todd, an African-American, who was my best man at my first two weddings,” Sheen said in a statement obtained by Access Hollywood.
“And for the record, my children did not show up today for a custodial visit without explanation,” Sheen’s statement continued. “So three and one-half years later, the reasons that caused the anger and frustration displayed on that voice mail continue to be manifested on a daily basis.”
In an interview with Denise Richards, set to air on “The Billy Bush Show” Wednesday evening, the actress said she only recently learned the calls had been leaked.
“I got several calls from my publicist who told me about it,” she said in a new interview with Billy. “Those are actually files with the court [from] two years ago… There are transcripts that were public record two years ago. I don’t know how an actual tape got out. I actually haven’t heard it since I was told about it, so I don’t know.”
Richards said calls like the one made public, were not out of the ordinary in the ex-couple’s bitter divorce and ongoing custody battles.
“It is what it is and this is something that I’ve been dealing with for a long time. I imagine that the public is bored and sick and tired of hearing about Charlie and Denise and our public custody and divorce battle,” she said. “I’m sure everyone is tired of it.”
The actress, who is currently starring in the E! reality show “Denise Richards: It’s Complicated,” told Billy that the recordings are not the worst she’s heard from Sheen. In e-mails made public last fall from Sheen to Richards, he wrote, “Go cry to your bald mom, you [expletive] loser,” referring to Richards’ mother who was undergoing chemotherapy.
“As bad as the tape is, the worst of it was the stuff about my mom,” she said. “He can say what he wants about me, but when you attack a woman going through chemotherapy, that’s pretty low. These are bad, which is why they are in a court document.”