Dax Shepard weighs in on wife Kristen Bell’s controversial anniversary post and had 'no clue' about backlash
Topics: Kristen Bell, Celebrity
Phoebe Tonks
Featured Image Credit: Gilbert Flores/2026GG/Penske Media via Getty Images
Topics: Kristen Bell, Celebrity
Dax Shepard has broken his silence surrounding wife Kristen Bell’s controversial anniversary post, six months after she faced an intense backlash for the eyebrow raising comments.
On the Monday, April 6 episode of Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, the actor, 51, sat down with guest Nikki Glaser and opened up about the post, which featured a quote that Dax had once infamously told his wife.
The conversation first kicked off when Glaser, one of the hosts of this year’s Golden Globes ceremony, had wanted to crack a joke about the post at this year’s awards, but decided not to because it was ‘old news by then,’ and she didn’t ‘want to make his life harder.’
Curious about the unaired joke, Shepard then asked to hear it.
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“Die My Love. If I Had Legs I'd Kick You. Sorry, Baby. These are not just captions to Dax Shepard's Instagram post for Mother's Day, or for Christmas, or captions for his anniversary post. These are movies nominated tonight,” Glaser replied as Shepard laughed.
The unaired joke was a reference to Shepard’s wife Kristen Bell’s Instagram anniversary post from October 2025, when she shared a photo of the pair hugging to mark the milestone occasion alongside the caption: “Happy 12th wedding anniversary to the man who, after and episode of Dateline, once said to me: ‘I would never kill you. A lot of men have killed their wives at a certain point. Even though I’m heavily incentivized to kill you, I never would,’”
The post divided audiences with some sharing the couple’s dark sense of humour, such as comedian Howie Mandel who joked: “He should write for Hallmark.”
Meanwhile the official account for Dateline even joined in, writing, “Screenshotted.”
Yet not everyone was so keen to take such a lighthearted view of such a serious topic, with several critics slamming the couple for being so cavalier about domestic violence.
“Crazy thing to joke about honestly. Sincerely, someone who thankfully survived,” one person commented. Another agreed, arguing, “What a wild thing to post during Domestic Violence Awareness month.”
During the podcast, Shepard went on to reveal that he had ‘no clue’ about the backlash for over a week and a half before it finally came to his attention, as he admitted: “I was alerted by someone that this whole thing was happening. I didn't know. And Kristen knew through her publicist but didn't tell me. So I actually didn't know, and this was brought to my attention.”
In fact, it was only someone checking in with him to see if he was okay, that alerted him to an issue at all - yet it was surprisingly Glaser that took issue with the backlash moreso than Shepard and Bell.
“But it's like, that's the thing that bothers me is, like, this is what you're talking about right now of all things? You f---ing losers. You're wasting your time getting angry about this. Go read some files,” she argued.