Aaron Phypers has accused his estranged wife, actress Denise Richards, of carrying on a six-month affair with Rudy Reyes, her instructor on Special Forces: World’s Toughest Challenge.
In a letter obtained by Page Six and reportedly shared with Richards’ family and friends, Phypers alleged, “Privately, I’ve wrestled with the painful truth: that Denise has been involved in an ongoing affair with her ‘Special Forces’ instructor, Rudy Reyes — something I confronted her about earlier this year. She begged me not to leave, saying it was nothing and that she only loved me. Then, she denied it all , even the explicit messages I found. Despite her promise to stop, more lies and shocking evidence emerged.”
Speaking to the Daily Mail, which first identified Reyes, Phypers claimed he discovered the alleged affair in April after finding over 100 sexts between Richards and Reyes on her phone. “I just had this feeling that something was off because her behavior had changed, she was being kind of cool to me,” he told the outlet. “I opened her phone — we both know each other’s passwords, so I opened it up and then I went to her deleted texts, and there were 107 of them between her and this guy.”
The messages allegedly included photos, videos, and explicit content detailing their alleged encounters. Phypers, 49, referred to Reyes, 53, as a “w—r” and said the messages “broke [his] heart.” He claimed that despite Richards’ promise to end the relationship, she resumed contact with Reyes in May, which he discovered over the Fourth of July holiday weekend.
“She offered to rebuild trust by letting me see her phone,” he said. “Well, it turns out she’s got another number, too, which I just found out about.” Phypers alleged that Richards was setting up meetings with Reyes out of town while deliberately creating arguments at home. “She flies Rudy to private hotels under the guise of ‘work trips,’” he wrote in the letter.
Phypers also alleged that during a confrontation, Richards destroyed his phone after realizing he had sent her conversations with Reyes to himself. Some of the content has since been published by the Daily Mail.
Phypers filed for divorce that Monday, ending nearly seven years of marriage and requesting spousal support. In response, Richards filed for and was granted a temporary restraining order against Phypers, accusing him of physical abuse. Phypers has denied the allegation, saying he never abused Richards.
He also raised concerns about Richards’ alleged substance use. “She’s got a real problem. She mixes [Vicodin] with booze, and she stays up all night,” he claimed to the Daily Mail. “She buys them in bottles of 500 pills. I don’t know what the market rate for those are, but it’s $10, $20, $30, $50 each pill. You do the math, a lot of money is going out the window for that.”
Phypers also claimed that Richards does not clean up after her many pets, which he said has caused tension in their home and added stress to him and his parents. The couple has reportedly moved homes six times in less than a decade.
Representatives for Richards and Reyes have not responded to Page Six’s repeated requests for comment.
When season three of Special Forces began airing in January, Reyes, who appeared to still be engaged to model Jade Struck at the time, spoke to Page Six about handling fan attention. “It’s tough with the missus. I said, ‘Honey, you run the social medias.’ Then she’d still get mad! ‘Who is this bitch?’ I don’t know! Now all of a sudden, she’s telling me to always put a shirt on,” he said.
In February, Reyes told his Instagram followers that he and Struck were “not together anymore,” calling it an “opportunity for growth and improvement.” During an earlier sit-down with Page Six, he described himself as a father and a family man, saying his time in the United States Marine Corps made him “the best version” of himself. “What we really wanna do is just have our loved ones and have our family and show our heart,” he said. “It’s wonderful to see [recruits] going through a discovery process because that’s what we’re doing, too. I’m doing the same thing.“
