Kristen Bell Appears on Tonight Show Amid Dax Shepard Post Backlash

Kristen Bell is focusing on the Nobody Wants This season 2 press tour amid controversy over her Dax Shepard anniversary post.

While appearing on the Thursday, October 23 episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Bell, 45, kept things light and did not mention her marriage or the controversial post throughout the interview.

In the light-hearted segment, Bell spoke about what to expect in the upcoming season of Nobody Wants This as well as sharing a sweet anecdote about Fallon from one of the summer trips they shared together with their respective families.

“Can I just say, not only is that a super-fun trip, but you are my favorite guest to see there. And I’ll tell you why. Because you have — you’re such an inspirational guest. You have a way of eventizing life that hits me in my marrow,” she said.

Bell continued, “Let me just set the scene. We’re all just having dinner. It’s very normal. It’s beautiful. It’s like, by a sweet river. Someone says, ‘Hey, we’re going to do karaoke later.’ Great. We decide to do karaoke, and literally out of nowhere … Jimmy knocks on the door. Like, he left, somehow, the dinner party, and shows up in a full Evel Knievel costume.”

Bell made headlines last week when she honored her and Shepard’s anniversary with a photo of the couple hugging, writing, “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.’”

Taking to the comments section, some users questioned the caption.

“Domestic violence isn’t a joke,” one user wrote, while another noted, “1. Congratulations! 2. I know the caption is supposed to be cute, funny, but worldwide a women [sic] is killed every ten minutes by their partner…#stopviolenceagainstwomen.” The official Instagram account for Dateline also chimed in, writing, “Screenshotted.”

Others, however, didn’t see an issue.

“I was in an abusive marriage for TWENTY THREE YEARS and I love this post. If you don’t want to be triggered, get off the Internet,” one user wrote, while another added, “I was in an abusive relationship and I got out. This post is meant for her husband not to all of us! Why do people have to take it to the next level??? She is talking to her husband but sharing with us. Not everything has a hidden message!”

Bell has since limited her comments on Instagram.

Days later, Bell was set to appear on the Today Show alongside Nobody Wants This costar Justine Lupe, according to the program’s schedule. Bell, however, was absent from the NBC morning show — with Lupe, 36, instead talking about the series and a prank she pulled on Bell. (Us Weekly reached out to Today and Bell’s team for comment.)

“Kristen’s obsessed with pranks. She will come to set and she’ll just pull up different pranks on her phone and show them to me. So I knew that that was kind of her love language, was pranking,” Lupe said. “And then I also know that Kristen — if you’ve met her, you know she’s obsessed with biohacking. She’s done everything there ever is to do with hacking the bod.”

As for the “biohacking,” Lupe noted that Bell wears a weighted vest in between takes and “pumps iron” in addition to having a glucose monitor — which gave Lupe an idea about creating a prank to “play into that.” (The Cleveland Clinic defines “biohacking” as a “DIY approach to self-care that uses everything from lifestyle changes to high-tech tools to improve your health.”)

“Basically, I was like, I’m going to convince her that I’m drinking my own pee. For two months, I staged different variations of me drinking fake pee, which was actually chamomile tea,” Lupe said, adding that Bell “fully believed” the prank and asked a doctor about whether it is “safe.”

Ahead of the TV appearance, Bell shared a series of Instagram photos of the Nobody Wants This press tour. In one clip, Bell sat side by side with costar Adam Brody as Lupe, Timothy Simons and Jackie Thon were seated behind them.

“Lewks and Prezz day 1 & 2 @nobodywantsthisofficial ,” she shared via Instagram. “(Used a bed b/c emoji doesn’t have a nightstand IYKYK and if you don’t know then you’ll know on oct 23).”