Dax Shepard Shuts Down Kristen Bell Salacious Rumor
In Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Kristen Bell plays the title character, someone who flits from one man to another and leaves her ex in shambles, causing him to seek a new purpose out in Hawaii. In real life, she is happily married, but there has been an ongoing Hollywood rumor that she and her husband are even more sexually adventurous than her onscreen character. Recently, Dax Shepard appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show and clarified that, despite the rumors, he and Kristen Bell are definitely not swingers.
How Did The Rumors Start?
Given how relatively tame and scandal-free the couple have been since marrying in 2013, you might be wondering exactly how the rumors about Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell swinging even got started.
According to the Armchair Expert podcast host, it began with “the most exciting tabloid story that we were Hollywood swingers and we hosted swing parties.” However, Bell has her own idea about where the rumor originated, and she lays the blame squarely on her husband’s off-kilter sense of humor.
Key Party Jokes
Speaking about the matter in a 2023 episode of Dax Shepard’s podcast, Kristen Bell explained that her husband likes to make “key-party jokes” when they have guests at their home.
“We’ll have a dinner party or something and, as we’re sitting down, [Dax] willl say, ‘Everybody leave your keys.’” For anyone too young to get the reference, key parties began as a ‘70s phenomenon in which swingers would put their keys in a bowl, grab one at random, and then have get intimate with the owner of said key.
An Ongoing Joke
While Dax Shepard’s strange sense of humor may or may not have begun the persistent rumor that he and Kristen Bell are swingers, the couple has found comfort in the fact their friends and colleagues simply find the rumor funny.
Shepard claims that after the tabloids began spreading rumors, he began getting tongue-in-cheek texts from friends such as “How could you not have invited me to the swinger party?”
Such jokes would have been funny coming from almost anyone, but we were surprised to discover one of the big names who engaged in teasing the couple.
Fantasies
For example, Shepard recently mentioned getting a text from TV host Jimmy Kimmel where the comedian described how “My feelings are quite hurt” that he and his wife “weren’t invited to this swingers party.”
This discussion prompted Drew Barrymore (herself married three times, including to Tom Green) to ask if there were any big names out there that Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell do fantasize about hooking up with.
A demure Shepard admitted that while “there’s a lot of hot couples out there,” they haven’t “crossed that divide with anyone,” after which he discussed their mutual obsession with the marriage between Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen.
Just Joking Around?
While Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell have learned to laugh at the persistent rumors that they love to swing, the Forgetting Sarah Marshall star once lamented the alleged key-party joke origin of all this speculation.
As she put it, “a lot of people don’t get jokes,” and this has forced everyone to be so precise and literal in their communication at all times that “that there’s no room for fun in expression or language anymore.”
Considering Bell and her witty dialogue became a household name thanks to Veronica Mars, she has a better appreciation than most of us for the slow, tabloid-driven death of creative communication.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
