Denise Richards revealed the list of people who sexually harassed her early in her career

As someone with over three decades in Hollywood, Denise Richards is “amazed,” by the seismic changes brought by the #MeToo movement and says, “There definitely needed to be a change — and not just in the entertainment industry."

As a young actress, there was a time she had wanted to file a sexual harassment lawsuit and was pressured to keep silent. “I was told I would be blacklisted,” the 54-year-old reality star says in this week’s PEOPLE.

“I felt so vulnerable,” she recalls. “This was the career I wanted to do. To be told that you're never going to work in an industry that you are passionate about, it's a hard thing.”

"I am glad that women are able to have more of a voice and be more protected,” she says. “If that happened at this age, I would handle it differently, but I was so young and an unknown and [just] starting out.”

She’s learned a lot from watching her three daughters, Sami, 20, Lola, 19, and Eloise — as the foursome, along with her husband, Aaron Phypers, embark on their new reality show, Denise Richards & Her Wild Things, launching March 4 on Bravo.

“I look at my daughters doing our show and being such strong women,” says Richards. “If I had that, I think I would've been able to handle it a little differently.”

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“I wish I had the confidence that they have because I would never be able to stand out for myself the way they do,” she reflects. “I didn't, and I'm so proud of them. I'm so proud that they say what's on their mind. They sometimes don't have a filter, and a lot of the time, that is such a good thing.”  

“I was such a people pleaser when I started my career,” she adds. “And I love that my girls, this early in their career, that they're able to [speak up]. Sometimes I'm like, ‘You might want to tone it down,’ but for the most part I'm glad that they're able to say [what’s on their mind.] I wish I was able to back then.”

Richards recently opened up about another traumatic experience while appearing on the Fox series Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test. She detailed the moment when a man tried to drag her out of a hotel lobby while on a cross-country trip with her parents and her younger sister at 15 years old. "I couldn’t yell, I couldn’t move, and my body went limp," she says. "Thank God a woman walked by. She made eye contact with him, and he let go of me. He ran out. To not even be able to yell — that’s the thing I couldn’t believe. It’s happened more than once in my life, and it’s something I’ve never really addressed.”

She learned to “compartmentalize,” she says. “I move on, but I never want my daughters to be in that situation. I’d want them to know how to fight back.”

She credits her mom, Joni, with teaching her a lot about strength. On Feb. 17, Richards turned 54, the same age that her mom was when she died in 2007. “I think what made me such a survivor was my mom,” she says towards the end of our interview. “My mom always said, ‘This too shall pass.’ I have been through it, but a lot of people have. I've always said, ‘Someone else always has it worse, and you will get through this.’”

And she reflects, "I've realized that I'm stronger than I thought I was."

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