Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell React to Swinger Rumors: ‘A Lot of People Don’t Get Jokes’

Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell have heard rumors that they’re swingers — and Bell thinks she knows why.

The couple discussed odd headlines they’ve read about themselves during the Monday, August 14, episode of Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast. “There was one that said we hosted orgies or swingers parties,” Shepard, 48, recalled.

Bell, 43, was quick to reply that she knows “exactly” where the orgy rumors started. “It’s because you frequently make key party jokes,” she explained. “We’ll have a dinner party or something, and as we’re sitting down, you’ll say, ‘Everybody leave your keys.’”

Shepard conceded that he’s made similar jokes to “many of the guests” who’ve appeared on “Armchair Expert” in the past. “Some of them, I realize afterwards, ‘Oh, we do not have the same sense of humor,’” he said. “I was like, ‘Hey, if you guys are ever in L.A. and you wanna swing.’”

Bell, for her part, said that she’s been surprised to learn that so many people don’t seem to have good senses of humor. “A lot of people don’t get jokes,” she said. “That’s actually something I have been thinking about lately, because it’s such a bummer that everything you say has to be taken so literally that there’s no room for fun in expression or language anymore when you’re telling a story, because you better have the facts right. It’s just such a lame way to communicate.”

Shepard and Bell, who tied the knot in 2013, have previously made plenty of jokes about their marriage and sex lives, but the couple made it clear on Monday that they’re just that — jokes.

In 2021, Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” cohost, Monica Padman, quipped that she’s in a “three-way marriage” with Shepard and Bell. “Well, we were in a three-way marriage,” she said during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, jokingly adding that the relationship was “not yet” sexual.

Shepard, for his part, added, “It’s all the responsibilities of two wives without the sex.” He went on to explain that he and Bell are “not actually bed hoppers” but noted Padman did stay with them during the coronavirus pandemic so she and Shepard could keep producing their podcast.

“It hit critical mass [one] month in because Kristen ‘got COVID,’” Padman, 35, recalled, using air quotes. “We thought. So, she was in her room quarantining on her own. At the same time, Dax broke his hand — couldn’t make food, couldn’t help with anything.”

At that point, Padman realized she’d had enough of the trio’s pandemic living arrangement. “I was there, like, ‘Oh, I have to take care of all of these children while [Dax and Kristen] are on vacation.’ OK, bye,” she joked. “I left.”

Shepard and Bell share daughters Lincoln, 10, and Delta, 8.

The couple didn’t reference the Padman jokes during Monday’s episode, but Bell said it makes her “feel bad” that some people take everything so literally. “For the most part when those comments come in, I think, ‘What a bummer that you’re not playful,’” she explained.