Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today.
Already a member?
Log in
Dax Shepard is shutting down speculation about his and Kristen Bell’s marriage.
The 51-year-old actor said on his Armchair Expert podcast that he wanted to address “deeply insulting” rumors that he mistreats his wife.
“Another round of me being a terrible person was in the media, and I avoided that, but then it hit Kristen’s doorstep really hard,” Shepard said Monday. “And then I got to find out everything that people are saying about me.”
He went on to say that the “weird narrative” circulating on the internet depicts him as “controlling, abusive, now flirting with people in public, which I don’t do.”
Shepard said that the rumors were particularly offensive to him because he grew up in an abusive his household and now dedicates his “whole life to being the opposite of all that.”
He continued, “I don’t ever yell at my children, I don’t swear at them. I don’t yell at my wife. To have given it my all to be the opposite of what now some group of people is saying I am, it’s hard.”
The Parenthood star added that the rumors are also “deeply insulting” to 46-year-old Bell, who he married in 2013 and shares two children with.
“She’s sitting in a house with her two daughters and modeling some abusive relationship? It’s very offensive to her,” he said.
Shepard and Bell’s relationship recently raised eyebrows when the Nobody Wants This star spoke on Armchair Expert about her husband’s compliments to other people.
“If we go to a dinner or something, like, there’s a couple things Dax does where he doesn’t have to look up and wink at me, but I know that he’s just being the best boy,” Bell said on the October 26 episode. “We’ll be at dinner, and, like, he’ll say to the waiter or waitress, he’ll go, ‘Wow, you have incredible eyelashes, gorgeous eyes, great job.’”
However, Shepard explained Monday that his wife’s comment had been misinterpreted.
“I’m finding the dude that I don’t think’s had a compliment in a while and tell him I love his shoes,” he said. “It’s always something that I want to make their day, and so those compliments is flirting with Kristen.”
He said that Bell’s remarks were twisted into a story where he “flirts with people in front of her.”
“Usually I can brush [rumors] off, but when we’re now on year two of now there’s a new one, then it just starts making me think, ‘Oh is this just my f***ing role?’ Like every four months there’s a new thing about me being a terrible man,” Shepard complained.
Shepard and Bell’s relationship came under scrutiny earlier this year when he said that he “neglected” her on Valentine’s Day.
