Dax Shepard got candid on Tuesday’s episode of his “Armchair Expert” podcast. He admitted he hit on Kate Hudson while she was still married to Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson. Page Six reported the confession, which came up during a conversation with his guests, sisters Sara and Erin.
He did not sound embarrassed about it.
Dax Shepard’s Bold Admission
Shepard, 51, told podcast guests Sara and Erin he went all in on that first meeting. “I gave her 111% of any charm I have,” he said, according to Page Six.
His reasons were simple. He told the sisters he found Hudson stunning, and that he loved her film “Almost Famous.” Part of the thrill, by his account, was disbelief that she was even in the room. He called it a crush, plainly, and made no attempt to dress it up as anything grander.
Her marriage did not slow him down. Shepard said he walked away feeling he had done as good a job as anyone could, and he described the night as a strong first showing, married or not.
The Poker Game Encounter
Oliver Hudson’s house was the setting. Shepard saw Hudson at a poker game at her brother’s house while she was with Robinson.
Nothing came of it then. Hudson was married, and the evening ended with Shepard going home to replay his own performance. A charm offensive with no follow-up, aimed at a woman who had come with her husband.
Page Six reported that his second attempt came later, after Hudson and Robinson separated in 2006. A mutual friend threw a dinner party in Malibu. Shepard tried again, and this time it landed. He told the Fosters that from that night on, the two were together every single day.
What Kristen Bell Said the Day Before
Timing makes the story stranger. On Monday, one day before the Hudson episode, Shepard’s wife Kristen Bell was the guest on “Armchair Expert.” Bell, 46, has been married to Shepard since October 2013, and the couple share two daughters.
Bell used her appearance to describe an odd habit of his. According to Page Six, Shepard flirts with her by complimenting other people. He will tell a waiter or waitress they have incredible eyelashes or gorgeous eyes, and Bell reads it as a signal meant for her. She said he does not need to look up and wink. She knows.
Put the two episodes side by side and a pattern shows. Shepard is a man who says his attraction out loud, to strangers, to podcast audiences, to his own wife across a restaurant table. Bell has framed that openness as a kind of reassurance. Telling a server their eyes are lovely, in front of her, is the opposite of hiding something. Talking about a crush on a married actress from nearly two decades ago, on a show his wife appeared on the day before, follows the same logic. Nothing about it is secret, so nothing about it is a threat.
Couples who survive a long time in public often settle on rules like that. What gets said openly gets defused. Shepard and Bell have spent years talking candidly about the ups and downs of their marriage, as Page Six noted, and this is one more example of the same choice.
A crush on someone unavailable is one of the most ordinary feelings there is. Shepard told the story as a comedy about his own nerve, and the punchline is that the first attempt failed.
Dax Shepard Kate Hudson: A Complicated History
The romance itself was short. Page Six reported that Dax Shepard and Hudson dated briefly in 2007, for a couple of months. Sara Foster noted on the episode that they got serious fast.
Hudson, now 47, was married to Robinson, 59, for nearly seven years, from 2000 to 2007, and they share a son. She was later engaged to Muse frontman Matt Bellamy, with whom she also has a son. Since September 2021 she has been engaged to musician Danny Fujikawa, 40, and they share a daughter.
Dax Shepard married Bell six years after his fling with Hudson ended.
Two months in 2007, one failed pitch at a poker table, and a story he was happy to tell nearly twenty years later.
Sources: Page Six
