Kristen Bell sparked backlash with an anniversary tribute to her husband of twelve years, Dax Shepard, that many fans felt made light of domestic violence.
On Saturday (October 18), the Nobody Wants This star shared a photo of herself and Shepard hugging on Instagram.
She captioned it: “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.”
While Bell seemed to be joking, many followers didn’t find it funny. “Domestic violence isn’t a joke,” one user commented, while the official Dateline NBC account added a simple but pointed “Screenshotted.”
As of now, Dax Shepard—who shares two daughters with Kristen Bell—has not posted an anniversary tribute on Instagram.
During the recent season two premiere of Nobody Wants This, Bell admitted in an interview with Entertainment Tonight that she’d actually forgotten her anniversary date.
“I’m so glad you told me,” she joked to reporter Cassie DiLaura, laughing that the question caught her off guard. “It helps that he doesn’t remember either,” Bell added. “And no one’s at fault here, right? We’re just not great with dates.”
During a September episode of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, around the 1:26:00 mark of the video below, the actor opened up about his marriage to Kristen Bell, saying that while it’s not “perfect,” he still considers it “enormously successful.”
