Why Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen’s Daughter Sami Sheen Joined OnlyFans at 18 (Exclusive)

According to Sami Sheen, her decision to join OnlyFans was really an economic one at first.

In this week’s PEOPLE cover story, the 20-year-old daughter of Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen, shares why she joined OnlyFans, the provocative social media platform. 

At the time, she had just turned 18. “I really wanted to get an apartment, and I knew that working at the candy shop I was working at wasn’t going to cut it,” she says. “So I went to the next best thing and made an OnlyFans.” 

Two years later, it pays the rent.

“It opened so many doors for me,” she adds, “and I’ve met really cool people doing it, and it’s been really rewarding being my own boss and making my own hours and being able to do the things I’ve always wanted to do.”

“I have a pretty structured routine now,” she continues. “It is just adding in different outfits or if my subscribers request specific things or I’ll talk to other girls or watch videos to get different ideas.”

It also gave her mom the idea to launch her own page — for a different reason.

“I really did it because I didn’t understand what OnlyFans was,” says Richards, 54, who also has two younger daughters, Lola, 19 and Eloise, 13, who will join her and Sami on a new reality show, Denise Richards & Her Wild Things (premiering March 4 on Bravo). “I had heard of it… and when I saw that Sami was getting so much backlash, it really upset me as a mom and also as a woman in this business.” 

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Especially because some of her own early roles, such as the 1998 erotic thriller Wild Things (opposite Neve Campbell) could be judged. “Then to be perceived as a sex symbol, people can have an opinion about that,” she says. “[So] it bothered me that Sami was getting backlash for owning her own sexuality and her being a woman and doing what she wanted to do.”

The reality star ended up joining as well. As she joked early on: “I’m grateful if someone wants to see my boobies.” 

Her husband Aaron Phypers films her content. “Because I’m a guy, I know what the perspective would be,” he notes. “I shot it more like a high fashion Vogue…. So not crazy but sexy. I thought I took some nice shots.”

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Overall, her two older daughters are fine with her decision. “I think it’s great,” says Sami. “I always just tell her I wish she waited a little bit because she started it right after I did. But yeah, it doesn’t bother me at all.”  Adds Lola:  “Whatever makes her happy.”

Still neither Mom nor Sami have gone on each other’s pages. “No, that would be weird,” says Sami. Adds Richards, “Yes, we draw a line there.”

Denise Richards and Her Wild Things premieres with two back-to-back half-hour episodes on Tuesday, March 4 on Bravo.