Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard recently celebrated their twelfth wedding anniversary. I can’t believe it’s been that long, and yet it also feels like they’ve been doing this for a lot longer. They have two daughters, and Kristen is still an in-demand actress and Dax is the host of arguably one of the most popular podcasts (Armchair Expert). Incidentally, while I can’t stand either of them, I’ve always thought that they have a good marriage and they’re pretty solid (if annoying as hell). Well, on their anniversary, Kristen posted the photo above on Instagram, with this caption:
Happy 12th wedding anniversary to the man who 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.”❤️
Dateline NBC posted a comment: “Screenshotted.” I felt the same way, that’s why I screencapped the post too, in case she takes it down because of the backlash. Because what the actual f–k is she doing? Her comments are a mess too – people are saying sh-t like “Kristen there’s no way you posted this during domestic violence awareness month” and “just an fyi, posting this caption during domestic violence awareness month is unbelievably tone deaf :/ please reconsider.” She’s already limited the comments on the post too, rather than just taking it down.
My guess is that Kristen and Dax thought they were being “quirky” and Kristen’s justification for leaving it up is “omg, no one gets my dark humor, it’s so funny!” No, we don’t think domestic violence is funny! We think this is a huge red flag! We think that no man should “joke” about this with his wife! Jesus.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Kristen’s IG.
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- LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 15: Kristen Bell attends the Ninth Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on April 15, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.,Image: 769820985, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Kristen Bell, Credit line: Jeffrey Mayer / Avalon
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- BEVERLY HILLS, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA – JANUARY 05: Dax Shepard and wife Kristen Bell arrive at the 82nd Annual Golden Globe Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 5, 2025 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 952080664, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Dax Shepard, Kristen Bell, Credit line: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon
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- Dax Shepard, Kristen Bell during the TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World Gala, held at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, Thursday April 24, 2025. Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com,Image: 991975461, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com, Model Release: no, Credit line: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com/Avalon
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- Dax Shepard, Kristen Bell during the TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World Gala, held at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, Thursday April 24, 2025. Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com,Image: 991975492, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com, Model Release: no, Credit line: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com/Avalon
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- Dax Shepard, Kristen Bell during the TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World Gala, held at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, Thursday April 24, 2025. Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com,Image: 991976209, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com, Model Release: no, Credit line: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com/Avalon
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- LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – OCTOBER 16: Kristen Bell at the season 2 premiere of Netflix’s “Nobody Wants This” at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood on October 16, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.,Image: 1046343986, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Kristen Bell, Credit line: Jeffrey Mayer/Avalon
I think they’re both idiots, and there’s definitely something “off” about Dax.
After they let their kids drink near beer during Zoom class, I’ve really questioned their maturity. But this is next level tone deaf.
Apparently, “I’m not Scott Peterson” is the new, “I love you.”
GAH!
Those weirdos. Never liked either one. They should have stuck to talking about their bathing habits.
That guy has a Raising Arizona vibe. Like, just shy of cray-cray. Wacky, more than dangerous. And she seems very tightly wound & image conscious. Total opposites. So to them that might be funny. Out of context, …not so much.
My XH and I also had a similar inside joke, but it went like this: “So…you know, divorce is always an option. Like, please just divorce me.
And that’s what we did. TF is this mess???
I’ve had an impression for years that they’re white-knuckling it through this marriage, staying together because they’re constantly in therapy working through all the ways they trigger each other. This awful “joke” certainly isn’t reassuring.
100%. I think they stay together because it’s their whole shtick and it works for them professionally.
They’re both so tacky and lack discernment in almost everything. And I’m sure they don’t care about WHY people are calling her/them on this bull. Trashy, smug behavior all around from Kristen.
Nothing stupid they do surprises me. They find ways to be creepy and dense as f**k!!
😳
Those two are deeply, deeply weird.
You know, if this was a private joke between the two it would still give me pause because there are just some things you don’t fucking joke about. But the fact that she CHOSE to make this public, during DV awareness month no less, welp TBH “tone-deaf” is too kind of phrase.
Dax once asked Fred Armisen if he felt out of place or not popular in school growing up because his ethnic heritage is Latino/Asian. WTF. That told me how Dax viewed his schoolmates..he didn’t bother with them unless they were white
This is very dark. Why would she even think to write this?
That purple people book is racist. These two love to provoke reactions. They’re jerks.
Collision at the intersection of inside jokes and intrusive thoughts. Yikes. Some things don’t need to be shared.
My husband and I would joke kinda like this, but it was more because I’m a huge fan of mystery novels and was even writing one when we met. He told me after we’d been dating a while that he was kind of alarmed by the books about poisons and other deadly subjects on my bookshelves when he came to my apartment for the first time. That said, we knew it wasn’t really for public consumption and only funny in the context of my knowing a lot about obscure murder methods.
Must add those that I find all the pearl clutching over “I can’t believe they said/did this during X awareness month!” tedious. Normal people have no idea about it being whatever awareness month. I bet 90% of the people posting outrage didn’t either until they saw someone else’s post. This isn’t about this incident in particular, it just inevitably rubs me the wrong way.
Yeah, I agree the timing is not the problem. And people love any excuse to ‘join the mob’ especially on the internet where it’s anonymous.
It’s not about the Awareness Month. It’s about the fact that every 10 minutes a woman is murdered by family, and usually it is the husband/partner. The husband is always the likeliest person to inflict harm on a woman and the numbers show it. And prosecution for these crimes is inadequate.
If the post had been “Thank you to the man who hasn’t killed me yet for over planning!” or some kind of cutesy joke like that it would be different. What he posted is terrifying and weird and really shouldn’t be normalized.
Same with my husband – I’m a huge mystery reader & tv watcher (only fiction, not “true crime”), love forensics, we joke about how to best make it look like an accident etc. So I don’t think a couple having these jokes is weird at all.
However, for anniversaries (25 next week!) I just post a wedding kiss photo and say “I love you”…
She obviously knew that it was DV Awareness month after everyone on IG told her and that’s when she should have deleted it. It’s the arrogance, lack of sensitivity and refusal to course-correct that’s the problem, not that she didn’t know in the first place.
This pearl clutching is why Dems lose elections. Let’s try not to take ourselves so seriously.
Democrats lose because of gerrymandering, voter obstruction and misinformation, not “pearl clutching” over murdered partners 🙄
WTF this comment is uncalled for. Trumpers suck so bad
I’m no Trumper. Dems also lose because of a host of other issues. But playing into the culture wars is what they want from you, and this outrage machine (“Uncalled for!”) just diverts attention from what we should really be focused on: Billionaires are contorting the economy for their gain. You can keep getting outraged, but it’s only serving your ego. It’s not serving progress.
What an interesting take especially considering oligarchs generally tend to love the reactionary mindset that minimizes violence against women for sociopolitical reasons. Attitudes towards women indicate a socioeconomic and political stance in themselves- google the feminization of poverty if you are worried economically.
She isn’t exhibiting a reactionary mindset. She was making a less than completely thought through joke. It’s up to you to decide whether you gain more than you lose by villainizing that.
Nobody is villainizing anything? We all just think it’s inappropriate because it is, lol. You’re the one that randomly brought up Dems and politics.
Sounds like your moral superiority is working out for you, then. Unfortunately it’s not working out as well for the Democrats.
You’re having a different conversation in your mind than the rest of us.
She did not say they said this to each other, only that he said it to her. Without more info (ex this is running joke, their dynamic, etc), what he said is horrifying.
This is shades of, “men are afraid of being mocked/women afraid of being killed.”
If my friend told me their partner said this, I’d be afraid for my friends life; it would be a massive red flag.
Rights are being overriden in the U.S., with womens rights among them. Womens bodily autonomy is being eroded, from abortion – in some states, even in cases of rape or threat to mothers life- to conservatives pushing to remove access to birth control and revoke voting rights. The Equal Rights amendment was never passed federally, was never ratified to constitution. It would be easy to set us back to the 1950s, esp as evangelical extremists want women back in subservient roles with the man as head of household. Hell, even back to the 1970s would be terrible..
Just a sampling:
Marital rape laws did not go into effect in all states until the 1990s
https://ualr.edu/socialchange/2018/04/15/reflection-history-sexual-assault-laws-united-states/
1994: The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was passed, defining sexual violence as a federal crime (BTW, VAWA written by Senator Joe Biden)
https://allin.tulane.edu/content/timeline-history-sexual-violence-us
2016: The Sexual Assault Survivors’ Rights Act was signed into federal law (“Thanks, Obama!”)
https://www.theregreview.org/2016/11/09/wong-sexual-assault-survivors-bill-of-rights/
I was born in the 70s, so my female relatives and I have clear memories of how limited rights were, even then.
Just as sampling, look at movies, books during just the 70s-80s, to see US dominat cultural thoughts about womens place, purpose, and autonomy….its a sobering exercise. A lot of what was considered “progressive” thinking about women looks like the s**t end of the stick to modern eyes.
Actually people like you who conflate the online commentariat with actual politicians are the problem. Not a single Congressional Democrat is “pearl-clutching” about what freaking Kristen Bell posted on IG right now but people like you love to perpetuate that false perception. Wonder why….
..? Not sure if your comment was for me, but I think Kristens post was tone deaf in current climate. Its not because its DV month – i didnt even know that. Regardless, she has zero obligation to vette her comments for every eventuality, and has total freedom to post whatever she wants. And Im not saying she should be pilloried, or that shes the slippery slope to hell. Im saying that im frustrated with her comment because of everything going on in US right now- IMO, her comment was dumb.
Hi Jbolivar, I believe Kitten was replying to Mere.
Great post by you, though! What’s happening around us is making me sick.
Sarcasm doesn’t play in print. I learned that 20 years ago and she knew it good and gdamn well.
This is a bigger mess than she thinks. It’s bad for him, bad for a future divorce scenario, bad for her show.
If I were married or dating someone, and they felt compelled to say “I want you to know I would never kill (or hit) you” I’d run.
I like her as an actress. She was great in Veronica Mars and great in Queenpins. But my goodness IRL she comes off as clueless. I remember when she was bragging about not bathing her kids until they smell during that time when clueless White people would wield their White no one is gonna call DFACS on us privilege by getting online to brag about how they don’t bathe their children, as if that’s something aspirational. WTF
Some people really need to get off the Internet. No good comes of them being on it.
Why do I get the funniest feeling that this is an indirect sign that they’re going to split up?
Her picture above is the perfect depiction of smug.
Cry for help?
Icky- imagine being the poor assistant who had to take that picture
People who are always making dumb jokes about everything are a huge pet peeve for me. Her personality is such a huge turn off for me that I’m amazed when I like her actual work.
I think that kind of dark humor is fine been couples, but you have to recognize that it needs to stay between you two instead of being used for public consumption out of context. These two have always overshared far too much for want of attention.
These 2 need a lot of attention.
The real question is what he thinks his incentives are to kill her!
He is obsessed with how much money she makes (frozen etc). Its all he talks about. He suck so much and so does she. They both seem excruciating to be around. The assistant, monica, not great either.
This so gives me the ick!
It’s making light of a terrifying situation that so many women find themselves in fear of daily
It’s giving me big pick me energy, I’m not like the other girls. I think DV is funny, we’re so quirky, look at me energy
Well, I suppose she got what she wanted everyone looking at her and talking about her
I have a sense of humour but this is not it
As a psychologist (and not a fan of either of them) – I don’t find it strange for a woman to ‘joke’ about this subject. People use humour to manage real anxieties. Women live with threat from men on a constant basis. In the same way we watch horror films to ‘play’ with our terror of death, I think couples can joke about violence to ‘play’ with the reality that men can kill women with their bare hands if they so choose. It’s frightening for both men and women to know that reality. I appreciate her post was tone deaf and unfortunate given the DV awareness month, but I don’t think it’s crazy for a couple to joke in this way.