Dax Shepard addressed public speculation about his marriage after his wife, Kristen Bell, shared on his podcast that he flirts with her by complimenting other people when they’re out together.
“There’s a couple things Dax does where he doesn’t have to look up and wink at me, but I know that he’s just being the best boy,” Bell said during the Oct. 26 episode. “We’ll be at dinner and, like, he’ll say to the waiter or waitress, he’ll go, ‘Wow, you have incredible eyelashes, gorgeous eyes. Great, great job.’”
She added, “But that’s flirting with me because he just made someone else feel good.”
Rather than charm listeners, however, Bell’s description of her husband’s behavior raised red flags for some people, which Shepard called “so frustrating” in Monday’s episode of his “Armchair Expert” podcast.
“[The] weird narrative that is surrounding me as, like, controlling, abusive, now flirting with people in public, which I don’t do… It’s so frustrating,” he said.
Shepard said he thinks Bell shared that aspect of their marriage “in a way that got easily confused for people. Because we’re saying I flirt with Kristen by tipping people a lot. And I flirt with Kristen by complimenting people.”
“If you think I’m complimenting, like, hot young waitresses, yeah, you got a problem,” he continued. “I’m finding the dude that I don’t think has had a compliment in a while, and tell him I love his shoes. It’s always somebody that I want to make their day.”
Shepard said the allegations hit a sore spot because he has devoted his “whole life to being the opposite” of the abusive men he grew up around.
“I don’t ever yell at my children. I don’t swear at them, I don’t yell at my wife,” he said. “To have given it my all to be the opposite of what now some group of people is saying I am, it’s hard.”
Shepard said he also finds the speculation “deeply insulting” to Bell. The couple wed in 2013 and share two daughters, Lincoln and Delta.
“She’s what, she’s sitting in a house with her two daughters and modeling some abusive relationship?” Shepard asked. “Like, it’s very offensive to her.”
Shepard told his co-host Monica Padman that he normally will simply “brush off” rumors, but speculation that he’s a “terrible man” makes him want to “go away.”
Watch the “Armchair Expert” podcast below.