Kristen Bell & Dax Shepard Have Ruined Their Reputation Beyond Repair

If it grates on your nerves every time you hear Dax Shepard's "welcome welcome welcome" podcast greeting or Kristen Bell's "holy forking shirtballs" curse from "The Good Place," you might be among those suffering from overexposure to the chronic oversharers. And it's for this reason that the couple has an unsalvageable reputation.

Bell and Shepard's decision to have a humble courthouse wedding in 2013 could have endeared them to the public by making them seem like they were rejecting the excessive extravagance that makes other stars feel completely unrelatable. But while their wedding was low-key and quiet, the couple was not; they just couldn't shut up about the conflict in their relationship. They have both separately and very publicly admitted that they are complete opposites with drastically clashing opinions. And with all those opposing beliefs between the two of them, there is always something for just about anyone to take issue with.

Thanks in part to Bell and Shepard sharing TMI about how weird their marriage is, they sometimes pop up in Reddit threads with titles like, "Which couple are you not a fan of?" One commenter explained their choice by writing, "I can't look at them without cringing now." And in a thread about rumors that Bell and Shepard are swingers, another person wrote, "Everything I've learned about these people has been against my will." So, massage your shoulders, because they're going to be stuck in the cringe position as you learn more about why the pair's reputations have tanked.

On his "Armchair Expert" podcast, Dax Shepard has a habit of channeling pre-woke Howard Stern by talking about his guests' attractiveness. "Is anyone else bothered by Dax's constant sexualization towards female guests?" reads the title of a 2019 Reddit thread. A year later, Shepard told Natalie Portman that for 12 years he kept a photograph of her inside his toolbox, which Kristen Bell discovered. During the podcast episode, Shepard made an even wilder confession when recalling his reaction to seeing a 12-year-old Portman in "Léon: The Professional" when he was 19. "I was like, oh my God, this person's so talented and so cute and so everything," he recalled. "I shouldn't feel that way about whatever ... this is terrible."

Unfortunately, it gets even worse. When Amanda Peet appeared on "Armchair Expert," Shepard confessed to her, "I have had a fantasy about Natalie Portman since I saw 'The Professional' like 20 years ago ... about how our instant connection would be so palpable and explosive." Shepard's crush on the then-underage actor creeped some listeners out, with one Redditor writing, "This is not a good look."

Shepard also stepped in it during a 2017 appearance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show." But Bell kicked things off by saying of "Rogue One" star Riz Ahmed, "I find Indian men irresistible." Her husband then chimed in to say, "She has a real f***sh for Indian men." That poor word choice did not go over well at all on the Lipstick Alley forum, where one user wrote, "F***shizing is so gross." Others called the couple out for not knowing that Ahmed is of Pakistani descent.

It's not just Dax Shepard's interactions with guests that some listeners find off-putting. Shepard has a close relationship with his co-host, Monica Padman, and some fans think his chummy behavior with her occasionally crosses a line and enters inappropriate territory. During a 2022 "Armchair Expert" podcast episode, Shepard joked that being able to see her made it hard for him to focus. After referencing that moment, one Redditor wrote, "He just gives me pervy vibes."

During another episode, Padman and Shepard fondly recalled making a "pee baby" together. They explained that Shepard urinated in Padman's new toilet; it didn't flush; Padman used it later and — ta da! Pee baby. Of the frequently discussed anecdote, a Redditor complained, " ... It grosses me out and I like gross out humor." When Kristen Bell appeared on the show, she also talked about Padman's appearance and how comfortable they are around each other. "I saw Monica take her bra off once, and her boobs went up," she said during a 2018 episode. And, yes, Shepard also joined the discussion.

The trio's dynamic has been discussed endlessly on social media, where a number of netizens find it odd that Shepard refers to Padman as his "soulmate." Some people are convinced that the co-hosts and Bell are in a throuple, while others think Padman is just way too enmeshed in the husband and wife's life. She used to work as their nanny before becoming Bell's assistant, then Shepard's co-worker. "It's a weird dynamic that icked me a few years ago," one Redditor commented. "It's one of the reasons I had to stop listening."

Instead of sharing a sweet anniversary post on Instagram, Kristen Bell hoisted yet another red flag in her relationship with Dax Shepard when they celebrated 12 years of marriage in 2025. The photo she chose was actually quite romantic; she had her arms around Shepard's neck, and his love for her was written all over his face as he closed his eyes and hugged her back. But Bell extinguished the Nicholas Sparks vibe with her caption: "Happy 12th wedding anniversary to the man who, after [an] 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 official "Dateline" account let Bell know it was now monitoring her relationship by writing in the comments, "Screenshotted."

While the show's response was tongue-in-cheek, some critics found Bell's words alarming, and it probably didn't help that she joked about women losing their lives to domestic violence during National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Reactions under the post were filled with shock and outrage. One user in the comments wrote: "Domestic violence isn't a joke." Others on Reddit chimed in to say that they were simply tired of seeing Bell and Shepard in the headlines. "The more I know about them, the more I wish I could block everything about them from ever coming up on every social media platform and newsfeed," read one comment.

One friend Kristen Bell can count on to have her back is her fellow "Burlesque" cast member Cher. While Bell's anniversary post had a lot of people condemning her over how tone-deaf it was, there were also many fans who felt that Shepard was the true villain of the story, so they cheered when Cher took a stiletto to his ego during her 2026 "Armchair Expert" appearance. 

Shepard was talking about how much he appreciated his family when Cher said of Bell, "She's definitely the better half." Shepard then tried to get Cher to pick a different ideal partner for Bell, and the singer attempted to shut down that awkward convo by joking, "I trust her, so you must have something that I don't see."

Shepard seemed desperate to change Cher's mind about him then and there, however, because he offered the "I Found Someone" singer a reason she shouldn't root for Bell to find someone else. "I'll tell you the thing you should like about me. I'm not threatened by her shining," he said. Cher also knows a lot about shining, and her comments gave the internet some serious shade to bask in. "Cher clocked that loser real good and we love to see it," one fan wrote on Reddit. "Where is the lie? How did someone as fabulous as Kristen Bell end up with ... that?" another commented. Others found Shepard's defense of himself rather cringeworthy. "'I'm not threatened by her shining'" isn't an achievement, it's the basics of a relationship," a Redditor argued. As Cher might sing: Take it like a man, Dax.

Before Kristen Bell joked about her marriage with Dax Shepard being so contentious that killing her has crossed his mind, she frequently talked about how much they fight. On a 2018 episode of "Jimmy Kimmel Live," Bell recalled how she and Shepard got in a screaming match over music and helmet laws during a motorcycle trip to her mother's house. Shepard was so angry that he left soon after they reached their destination. This was framed as a cute anecdote.

When Bell appeared on Justin Long's "Life Is Short" podcast in 2020, she recounted another ugly argument that started with her leaving a note for Shepard asking him to do some laundry. "He goes, 'When you leave me notes, I feel really controlled,'" she recalled. Bell's attempt to stay calm and keep the situation from escalating was unsuccessful. "We both blacked out and got into a fight," she continued, revealing that she and Shepard spent the next three days giving each other the silent treatment. One commenter on YouTube wrote of the incident: "She needed to leave him 5 years ago bc wtf like girl RUN."

The couple also took a hit from the media in 2026. The Cut referenced some of their relationship drama in a piece titled "I Love My Husband (Who Hates Me)," while Star magazine claimed that their friends were getting sick of their endless arguing. "It's a form of oversharing, and it's not for everybody!" said a source.

A delayed flight is one of life's little frustrations that a lot of people have experienced, so Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard had the opportunity to squeeze some sympathy out of their social media users when one of their flights was delayed by a full day in 2023. But when the couple chronicled the aftermath on Instagram, they revealed that they spent $600 on bedding for their family to camp out on the floor of Boston International because they couldn't find any hotel rooms. "We wanted to stay but we were kicked out," Bell later revealed on her Instagram Story (via Today). 

Of the couple's attempt to spend the night at the airport, one Redditor remarked, "These two are insufferable. Imagine regular people taking up this much space and making a huge mess in an airport." Another person wrote, "Each time they try to make themselves 'relatable' they seem to make themselves more annoying."

Bell and Shepard did not appreciate the criticism. On "Armchair Expert," Bell gave those bad-mouthing her and her husband an armchair diagnosis, saying, "People suffer from outrage addiction." Among the things netizens were getting outraged over that she found laughable was the amount of money she and Shepard spent on blankets and pillows. As for Shepard, he mused that their social media pummeling was politically motivated. "I don't know why you'd be so mad, unless we just symbolize liberals," he said.

For some of the couple's critics, the only thing worse than listening to Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard talk about their relationship might be listening to the pair share their most disgusting parenting stories. There was that time when both of their daughters were sleeping with them, and the room started to reek. "I'm like, 'Who's farting?'" Bell recalled asking the girls and Shepard during an "Armchair Expert" appearance. "All three of them are like, 'Sorry it's me!'" However, the culprit turned out not to be her flatulent family but the rotting protein shake Shepard had accidentally filled their Ooler mattress pad with. " ... I could have lived my life without imagining that smell," read one Redditor's reaction to the odoriferous anecdote.

Bell further grossed out social media users in 2023 after reading a note her daughter, Lincoln, wrote on Instagram. "Me and dad went fishing in the shower drain," it began. Lincoln also left her catch in the bathroom sink, which Bell deemed "absolutely revolting": a huge clump of soggy hair. "This should come with a trigger warning," one viewer commented. Another said, "You got guts girl. [I'd] never show my hair fishes online."

Then there is the time Bell got pinworms from her daughter. She happily described the wiggly, nauseating contents of her colon on "The Joel McHale Show" in 2018, telling the titular host, "It was very itchy." Years later, the story was still making Redditors queasy. In response to it, one person remarked, "We really need to know less about each other. You couldn't pay me enough to talk about this with anyone, let alone the whole world."

Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard don't just leave people green at the gills with their tales about the grosser side of raising kids; some of their anecdotes cause outrage because people don't agree with their parenting choices. There's the infamous example of Bell admitting on "The View" in 2021 that her children don't get bathed every day. "I'm a big fan of waiting for the stink," she explained (via People). "Once you catch a whiff, that's biology's way of letting you know you need to clean it up." 

While some fans found Bell and Shepard's method for determining whether their kids need baths funny, critics weren't laughing. "Lazy nonsensical parenting, bath time is wind down time before bed, promotes hygiene and good bed time habits," one Facebook user wrote. Another pointed out that classrooms would smell awfully unpleasant if this became a common practice.

Then, there was also the time Bell revealed on a 2020 episode of her "Momsplaining" series that her then-5-year-old daughter was still wearing diapers. The issue many people had with this revelation was the future ramifications for the child. "Yikes ... I'm sure her daughter will appreciate this information being out on the internet one day. Goodness," read one Reddit remark. During an interview with Today's Parent, Bell revealed that she saw so many critical comments about her daughter's age that she and Shepard decided to try a new potty-training method to get their daughter out of diapers. "The Twitterverse was kind of mom-shaming me, which I'm not interested in," she said.

If you're sick and tired of seeing those Carvana commercials starring Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard, you are not alone. In one of them, Bell finds several different ways to say the word "hold" that some people find irritating as she and Shepard monitor the value of one of their vehicles. In another ad, they discuss adding their entire fleet of cars, trucks, SUVs, and minivans to the Carvana Value Tracker. The camera then zooms out to show them standing in a driveway surrounded by eight vehicles, with three more in a garage off to the side. In an economy where DHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is encouraging Americans to eat liver to make their dollars stretch, and President Donald Trump is telling parents to buy fewer pencils for their kids to bring to school, there's no way the flashy display of wealth was going to go over well with some viewers.

There are numerous Reddit threads dedicated to the ads, including one that reads, "Carvana has made me dislike Kristen Bell. ... I have to turn the volume on mute or that HOLD makes my ears bleed." Others pointed out that the ads were out-of-touch and were just reminders of how much wealth disparity there is between the "have-nots" and the "haves." One person commented, "I feel like this is tone deaf given the current state of inflation and how many Americans are struggling to even put food on the table." Another opined, "Why does Carvana think we all will relate to a celebrity couple that owns ten cars??? Disgusting."

At the end of 2022, Edison Research listed "Armchair Expert" 33rd on its list of the most popular podcasts in America. By 2025, it had fallen to 50th. There are also scores of Reddit comments from fans expressing dissatisfaction with the podcast, and some one-time "Armcherries" have shared the moments that made them decide to tune out or start listening less. The issues include how Dax Shepard treats his guests, the people he chooses to platform, and the views he expresses.

On his podcast, Shepard has had many cringe moments that made fans uncomfortable, including a 2023 conversation with Jonathan Van Ness about trans kids that caused the "Queer Eye" host to cry. "I stopped listening a couple months ago because I am pretty passionate about trans rights & it really started seeming that Dax questions trans peoples rights more than he shows support for them," wrote a Redditor who referenced the Van Ness episode. Shepard also angered fans by interviewing pro-Trump country performer Jason Aldean. "Had considered stopping for a while but that guest was the end for me," read a reaction to that interview, a sentiment shared by many others.

Other listeners have complained that Shepard seems too sympathetic to right-wing viewpoints, with one person writing, "I too listened to the first season until Dax suddenly decided he was Joe Rogan." Then there are listeners who feel that the podcast has become repetitive and have lost interest in hearing Shepard talk about himself. So, the very reason many fans likely tuned in to begin with might be what kills the pod someday.