Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard have been together for literally a million years ('kay, like, 17) and the time has come to mine the history of their relationship. Unlike many celeb couples, Kristen and Dax are extremely honest about the ups and downs in their marriage and have even gotten into details about their fights, cheating allegations, and their sex life. In other words, we have a lot to cover….
Circa 2007
Kristen and Dax meet in 2007 at a birthday dinner for mutual friends. They start dating, although Dax briefly breaks up with Kristen in the early days of their relationship. She’s since opened up about the moment with PopSugar:
“We were dating for about three months, and I already knew that I was in love with him and he was hesitant because he knew he was still dating other people. He sat me down and said, ‘I can’t have this right now. I think you’re wonderful, but I am still dating other people.’ And then I, like, liquefied and fell to the ground, but I felt incredibly respected that he had the balls to tell me we weren’t in the same place...He called me and he was like, ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. I was dating someone else but they’re just not as interesting as you, and I don’t know what I’m doing,’ and he came back. But I still always remind him of when he broke up with me.”
Unforgivable, TBH.
Circa Winter 2010
Dax and Kristen get engaged but decide to hold off on making it official official until the state of California passes same-sex marriage legislation. At the time, the Veronica Mars actor's rep confirms to People that the engagement took place “over the holidays.”
March 2013
Dax and Kristen welcome their daughter Lincoln!
October 2013
Dax and Kristen get married at the Beverly Hills County Clerk’s Office. Here’s a cute throwback for ya:
December 2014
The couple welcomes their second daughter, Delta. “Delta Bell Shepard is here. She doesn’t look like either Kristen or me, but we’re gonna keep her anyway,” Dax announces in a since-deleted Twitter post.
And because we're friends, here’s a cute throwback pic of the pregnancy!
February 2016
Kristen joins Insta with a kissy pic of Dax alongside the caption, “I don’t know how to use instagram but I do like this picture.”
July 2016
Kristen opens up about her and Dax’s sex life in Redbook, saying, “We’re pretty decent about staying on top of it. We’ll be like, ‘Okay, it’s been how many days?’ We find a night when nobody is coming over and we don’t have to work super early in the morning, and then we slot it in.”
March 2017
During an appearance on Good Morning America, Dax talks about how he and Kristen “went to therapy early on to learn what our pattern of arguing was and where we needed to stop that.” He adds, “It’s great too, because you go to the therapist and he listens to you talk for about 30 seconds and then he’s like, ‘I got it.’”
August 2017
According to Kristen, her marriage with Dax “takes a lot of work.” As she explains to Us Weekly, “It is not easy to work around another human being, but if you commit to it, you can pretty much permanently respect that person, but then it doesn’t really matter if you disagree because you still respect that person. But on a daily basis, he just makes me laugh all the time. He’s obsessed with attention, so he’s constantly making jokes to try to get me to give him more attention or to get me to giggle. And you know, he was a stand-up comedian, so I’m living with a comedian.”
December 2017
During an interview with Us Weekly, Kristen says of herself and Dax, “We don’t believe in The One. We don’t believe in the fairytale. We don’t believe that you can meet someone and you have a perfectly matching personalities. We are opposites and it has taken a tremendous amount of work and therapy for us to coexist.”
Dax adds: “[Relationships] are labor intensive. If you want them to last, they are labor intensive.”
January 2018
When asked about keeping the spark alive with Dax by Us Weekly, Kristen says, “We make an effort to cuddle and remain physical with each other. You find you’re often cuddling with your girls, but then you realize you haven’t touched your partner on the back of the neck or put your arm around him in a week. It’s just paying attention to things like that that I think will keep you connected.”
December 2018
Dax denies reports that he cheated on Kristen two years into their relationship with Julie Andrews’ granddaughter, writing in a since-deleted post, “Hey, Daily Mail, that photo is 13 years old, not 9.”
January 2020
Kristen opens up about fighting with Dax and says this on the Life Is Short With Justin Long podcast:
“We had this pretty incredible fight recently. Incredible. I mean, like, top-of-the-lungs screaming. It was about the things around the house that I felt I needed help with. We have a relationship where you are supposed to be able to say, ‘I need your help with this.’ For those of you listening, I’m telling this from my perspective. He’s not here, he can’t defend himself.”
April 2020
Kristen tells Katie Couric that she and Dax are “at each other’s throats, real bad” in quarantine, and Dax even leaves their interview halfway through after saying, “America’s sweetheart has some character defects.”
May 2020
Kristen tells People that while the first two weeks of quarantine were “fucking brutal,” Dax’s help homeschooling their kids caused her to fall even harder for him:
“He’s made me feel like I’m not doing it by myself, which has made me fall much deeper in love with him.”
January 2021
The couple opens up about their relationship challenges during the pandemic and the importance of therapy.
“Dax and I, when we started this pandemic, were at a point in our marriage where we definitely needed a little therapy brush-up,” Kristen begins during her convo with People.
“Every couple of years, we're like, 'We're being very antagonistic towards each other,' and we don't want that...We go back to therapy and figure out what I'm not doing that's best for you and what you're not doing that's best for me, and how we can serve this team goal better. It's been incredibly helpful,” she adds.
November 2022
During a chat with Today, Kristen reminisces on the day she married Dax in October 2013. She describes the ceremony, which cost the actors a whopping $147 (!!) as the “easiest day” of her life because the duo had wanted a “really intimate” ceremony and chose to get married at the Beverly Hills courthouse. “I came out in sweatpants, and my husband was in a tuxedo, which was so cute, and he was like, 'I'll go pick your outfit out,'” the actor reveals before adding, “And he picked out a little black jumpsuit.”
September 2023
Kristen opens up about her and Dax's secret to a strong marriage during a convo with Entertainment Tonight and has this to say: “Common goals, seek them out. Our kids are a common goal, right? People are like, 'Oh, I wouldn't be able to work with my husband or wife or partner.' For me, I want another common goal with him. I respect him so much creatively. I have so much trust in him. Of course, I want him to be my director or my scene partner.”
September 2024
While chatting with E! News, Kristen describes herself and Dax as “polar opposites,” adding, “We are the antithesis of each other. We argue about absolutely everything, but there is a foundational trust that we’ve built that keeps us together and is quite stimulated by one another’s opinions.”
July 2025
Kristen is nominated for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series for Nobody Wants This, and Dax drops a photo of Kristen doing yoga outside...completely naked in just a pair of blue socks.
"People might not know everything that happens behind the scenes in order to create an Emmy nominated performance like Kristen’s," Dax captions the post. "This may or may not have been a part of her training, but it felt right. CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!"
October 2025
Kristen and Dax hit a major relationship milestone—12 years of marriage—and Kristen celebrates by posting a cute photo of herself and Dax hugging. However, the caption causes a lot of backlash...particularly because it was posted during domestic violence awareness month.
She writes, “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.' ❤️”
That brings us up to date, but stay tuned for more updates from these two.
