Denise Richards insists that Charlie Sheen hasn’t always been the man people see today. In fact, she claims he wasn’t a “bad boy” when she married him.

Both Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards are prominent in the news right now since he went public with his HIV-positive status earlier this week. Denise Richards and the daughters she shares with her ex-husband don’t have HIV.

EXCLUSIVE: Denise Richards knew Charlie Sheen was HIV-positive https://t.co/acHGmXpDNC pic.twitter.com/8sHyUCfUs6

— People magazine (@people) November 16, 2015

During a conversation on the podcast Allegedly With Theo Von and Matthew Cole Weiss, Denise Richards says even though she has a history of dating “bad boys,” Sheen wasn’t one of them.

“Charlie, when I married him, he wasn’t a bad boy. He was sober for almost four years. He was a very different person. His lifestyle was very, very different. He was a former bad boy, I guess,” she explained.

“I have a lot of empathy for anyone that struggles with addiction,” she added. “I’m not going to judge the choices they made under the influence. I can only judge the person I’m meeting and I think sometimes past experiences make who you are so I just went off the person I had met and gotten to know and fell in love with. He was very different.”

Denise Richards recalled her public shunning by Hollywood’s elite when she and Charlie Sheen split up. She attributes that to the popularity of Two and a Half Men at that time.

“I was surprised how much that affected me work wise…I was perceived as being a lunatic and crazy,” she explained. “There are people that have [since] come up to me and apologized for drinking the Kool-aid…It was hard.”

Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen do their best these days to get along, for the sake of daughters Sam, 11, and Lola, 10.

Denise Richards & children are HIV Negative. https://t.co/4wJaEukv1C pic.twitter.com/Gc8SId9S8R

— HollywoodLife (@HollywoodLife) November 17, 2015

“[It’s] up and down,” she said of their current relationship. “I’m always here [for him,] but he’s an addict. I believe we move past your s–t. Don’t sweat the small stuff. For better or worse, he’s going to be in my life for the rest of my life so I personally like to keep the peace.”

Denise Richards has known about Charlie Sheen’s HIV-positive status for several years. He became infected after they had split up.