Dax Shepard took on the rumors during the November 9 episode of his Armchair Expert podcast. He pushed back on a narrative that paints him as controlling and abusive toward his wife, Kristen Bell. “Another round of me being a terrible person was in the media,” he said.
He had planned to let it pass. Then, by his account, it landed hard on Bell’s doorstep, and he went looking at what people were actually saying about him.
Dax Shepard Responds to Abuse Rumors on Podcast
Shepard, 51, listed the labels himself. According to E! Online, he described a weird narrative casting him as “controlling, abusive, now flirting with people in public.” He added that he does not do the last one.
He called the whole thing “a level of unjustness.”
Shepard and Bell married in 2013, per Just Jared. They share two daughters. Thirteen years in, he was on a microphone explaining that he does not yell at any of them.
He Describes the Narrative as ‘Deeply Insulting’
Shepard tied his reaction to how he grew up. He said he was raised around certain men who behaved a certain way, and that he has dedicated his whole life to being the opposite of them. Page Six reported that this is why the rumors cut so deep for him.
“I don’t ever yell at my children,” he said. He also said he does not swear at them and does not yell at his wife. Giving everything to being the opposite of something, and then being called that thing, is hard, he told listeners.
Then he turned to Bell, 46. “I find it deeply insulting to my wife, additionally,” he said. His point was blunt. The rumor, as he put it, imagines her sitting at home with their daughters and modeling an abusive relationship. He called that offensive to her.
Shepard defended himself by discussing his upbringing and the accusations against him.
Kristen Bell’s Comments Sparked Misunderstandings
On the October 26 episode of Armchair Expert, Bell explained how her husband flirts with her. She appeared alongside her Nobody Wants This costars. Dax compliments other people, she said, and makes them feel good. At dinner, she described, he might tell a server, “Wow, you have incredible eyelashes, gorgeous eyes, great job.”
Co-host Monica Padman pushed back that he was flirting with the server. Bell disagreed. “That’s flirting with me because he just made someone else feel good,” she said, according to Just Jared.
Shepard said her phrasing was easy to twist. What she meant, he explained, was that he flirts with her by tipping well and complimenting people. “If you think I’m complimenting hot young waitresses, you got a problem,” he said.
His version is less glamorous. He looks for the guy who probably has not heard a kind word in a while and tells him he loves his shoes. Once Bell’s story “went through the grinder,” as he put it, it came out the other side as him flirting with people in front of his wife.
What ‘Flirting With Kristen’ Actually Meant
Bell and Shepard were never confused about this. Bell explained that her husband flirts with her by complimenting others. Shepard confirmed that reading almost word for word. The only people who misunderstood were the ones outside the marriage.
Private shorthand travels badly. Every long relationship builds a few, the joke only two people get, the gesture that means something specific at one dinner table. Said out loud to a stranger, it loses the context that made it sweet.
Shepard’s fix was not to drop the habit. He explained it. Clearly, on his own show, with his wife’s original words still sitting in the archive two weeks back.
Dax Shepard, by his own description, is still finding out what people are saying.
Sources: E! Online, Page Six, Just Jared
