Romper has an exhaustive and exhausting profile of Kristen Bell. (To be fair Bell herself is exhausting.) If you read our site you’ll know 90% of the content in the article. The piece blows a lot of smoke about Bell and I assume the audience is meant to be casual celebrity watchers and industry people. Elaine Lui at Lainey Gossip is quoted along with Jamie Blynn, the editor of E!. Lainey says Kristen is likely to do a talk show and that she would appeal to a certain segment. We’ve already seen Bell on the Ellen Momsplaining segment. We’ve seen celebrities with poor interviewing skills, like Kelly Clarkson and Drew Barrymore, land talkshows. It seems somewhat inevitable that Bell will be next. I’m not going to excerpt any of that as you’ll probably find it annoying too.
The interview is short on new quotes. The best quotes are actually in the video on their site. The author asked Bell about the controversy over her playing a biracial character on Apple TV’s Central Park animated show. She was replaced by The Umbrella Academy’s Emmy Raver-Lampman this July. Bell parsed her answer carefully. She was not asked about her tone deaf Purple People kids’ book, for which she has not apologized or responded to the criticism. Here’s some of her quotes from the article and video.
On shielding her daughter’s identity
“My feeling is that I chose a career in the public eye. I chose to be quoted, I chose to have my picture taken. I don’t know them yet. I don’t know if they will want that. So I really don’t have the right to choose for them.”On playing a biracial character and being replaced by another actress
“I grew up in Detroit. I didn’t consider myself an ounce of a racist. And when I read How to Be an Antiracist, White Fragility — required reading of a citizen of Earth in 2020 — I realized, ‘Well, I’ve been a part of these systems.’ I was unaware of this whole pot of shit that’s been stirring. I have a lot to learn. And I have a lot of action steps to take, to fulfill what I think my beliefs are,” Bell says.“When Central Park was shaped as a project… we sold the show before we had a plotline… I ended up being the only character who was playing out of race.”
“The people who say I could play that role aren’t wrong, But I wanted to step down for two reasons. One, if there was one girl who could have a job who wouldn’t otherwise have a job, because there are not a lot of Black or mixed-race characters on cartoons — if one girl could have that job, I would want her to have it. Two, if any little girl who is mixed-race or Black looks up who plays that role, I want them to see someone who looks like them.”
“It’s absolutely the right decision and it went to absolutely the right girl.”
On telling her daughters not to swear [this is where the quotes from the video start]
“What we told them was, look, there are certain things you’re not allowed to do till you’re older. You can’t drive my car, you can’t try alcohol. It’s just the way it is, take it up with society.”On what her daughters know about covid
“We’ve went through, a real big, long, pinworm stage. So they understand the concept of washing their hands because we had had this pinworm episode. I said, you know what? Everyone in the world is having to participate in this. And we don’t wanna get it, but it’s actually not about us. Grandparents are really vulnerable, people who aren’t as healthy, and it is our job, like superheroes to protect them.”On telling her daughters they’re “kind girls”
“I also have said to them since they were very young, to give them a sense of identity, ‘we’re kind girls.’ I actually want them to know their category right off the bat. ‘We’re kind girls, that’s our gang and you’re in it.'”
[From article and video on Romper]
In the video, which I’m not embedding but you can see here, she says one of her daughters has anxiety (she didn’t specify which one) and that she helps her with books for children about it. She also went in depth about telling her daughter that Santa isn’t real, which she’s mentioned before. There were a lot of good quotes there, which makes me wonder why the article wasn’t written like a traditional interview.
The one quote that struck me is the one where she tells her daughters they can’t swear by reasoning that they can’t drink alcohol or drive a car. Remember when she admitted her daughters, aged seven and five, drink O’Douls? That was right before her husband, Dax Shepard, said that he had a relapse. I think she should dial back this oversharing about her family, but it’s her whole brand at this point and Dax is definitely on board.
Thank you for stating the O’Douls story, which I found in very poor taste (pun not intended). I don’t quite understand the “shielding” their daughter’s identity. How can she state that when she over shares info about them. She needs to put her energy into other avenues.
i know she overshares about her family, but i kind of get it when she says she’s shielding her kids? like i know all their medical ails, but i couldn’t pick them out of a line up like a lot of other celebrity kids. I can’t even think of their names off the top of my head (if they’ve even shared that). i’ve never seen a pap walk or red carpet when they’ve had their kids with them.
You know what is sad, I think Kristen is the one that is truly holding that relationship together now.
I have a feeling Dax has tried to leave before.
One of my friends wrote a parenting book, called “Ignore It” (by Catherine Pearlman if anyone wants to look it up) and Kristen has talked about it a couple of times in interviews. I see her as a verbal processor, and she doesn’t seem to understand that she can process all her parenting woes and questions and concerns out of the public eye. I get that she is trying to be relatable, and I appreciate that, because I love a healthy dose of reality from celebrities. That said, a lot of this is better discussed with girlfriends and not the world.
I like what she said about stepping down so a POC could take the role. That is the correct response. I don’t know about how long it took her to come to this or if she shouldn’t have taken it in the first place (I haven’t followed this particular situation), but she says the right things here. I also appreciate her mentioning her own personal reckoning with race in 2020. More white folks should be reading and paying attention and listening to the voices of others, particularly BIPOC, letting THEM take the lead as we muddle through these hard issues and conversations.
She was forced to step away from that role only after Jenny Slate made a public declaration about doing it first. She had no intention if stepping away from the role. This us revisionist history.
Slate & Bell released their messages about leaving their roles on the same exact day, June 24th. You are revising history.
Good for Bell & Slate, and if they discussed this together before they released their statements, good for them on that too.
If that’s what you need to believe to get through the day, be my guest.
As an aside about race. I bought two books yesterday on race. “White Fragility” and “You Want to Talk About Race.” Sorry I don’t remember the authors. If anyone wants to do more homework.
She says she doesn’t share pictures of her kids because they can’t consent basically…how is that any different than sharing all the embarrassing stories she does of them? It’s exploitative both ways and although it’s noted on this wonderful site I wish it was everywhere else too! I think she’s the worst.
I was coming here to say the same thing. She says “oh I’m protecting their identity” and then regales the world with stories about pinworm (which other kids will tease them about) and anxiety (which I agree the stigma about mental health is lessened by talking about it – but it should be HER DAUGHTER choosing to talk about it if she wants to when she’s older..) She’s an exploitative idiot.
If Kristen Bell was my mother, I would be swearing 24/7.
The things she’s telling about her children are way more private than showing their faces.
She reveals so much more about her daughters personal lives than a picture ever would.
This. And the weird photos she posts of them- full body shots with a big emoji covering their faces- is just weird. Why bother? Oh right, because she wants attention and is using her kids for marketing her parenting brand. But she has to constantly remind us what a good mom she is who is hellbent on protecting their identity.
I can’t force myself to read another article about this liar, so I will just comment on what you posted. There is so much wrong with this. She has talked about how her children swear and she finds it humorous. She says she doesn’t want the children in the public eye because she doesn’t know who they are and what they want, but previously she talked about how she forced them to join a theater group. She has a lot of nerve talking about worrying about grandparents with COVID when she just hosted a Halloween party for 20+ people, including at least one grandparent. She lies all the time. I said this in a previous post, but she and her husband seem to have no one who will tell them they are full of shit and give them a reality check. That’s what happens when your friends and family are on the payroll. There is no real honesty or equal relationship.
P.S. It’s pretty rich of her to talk about diversity when one of the Instagram commenters about the Halloween party suggested they add a Black character to their stories. Ha.
Can you tell me more about this Halloween party she had and give a link? This is the first I have heard about it.
Photos are on Instagram. She didn’t post many but the other attendees did not hesitate to post. Shepard posted some, one with his mother.
Maybe you shouldn’t read her ig either. You seem to have a deep resentment against this woman that bleeds into being an expert on her & exaggerating the truth, so maybe just avoid the topic of her altogether…for your own sanity.
Thanks for the advice. I will cancel my therapy this week.
OK, first off this chick isn’t from Detroit. She grew up in Huntington Woods and went to school in Royal Oak, both affluent suburbs of Detroit. As someone who was actually born and raised in Detroit, I hate when folks like her try and say they are from Detroit. And most of the time it’s white folks that try to put that claim out there to give them street cred. Granted outside our region no one likely would know Huntington Woods but don’t try to sound like you’re woke and from Detroit when neither are correct. I can’t stand her. And yes, she’s exhausting.