Dax Shepard has Bed, Bath & Beyond to thank for his relationship of close to two decades.
On the Feb. 18 episode of Finding Your Roots, Shepard, 50, recalled the first time he met his wife Kristen Bell nearly 17 years ago — and revealed the first impression that caught his attention.
“I had broken up with a woman that morning, so I was not in the market for anything. I was, in fact, quite distracted by the breakup,” he said of the day he met Bell, 44. “I do remember she was there because she was telling this story about getting a 20% off Bed, Bath & Beyond coupon in the mail and how ecstatic she was about that.”
“I remember thinking this is pretty adorable that this movie star is this excited about 20% off,” Shepard told host Henry Louis Gates Jr.
The actor said that he learned she was from Michigan, like him, so how “frugal” she was made sense, but still, “there was no real connection” that first meeting.
It wasn’t until a few weeks later that Bell and Shepard happened to both be at a hockey game in L.A. — because Bell is “obsessed with the [Detroit] Red Wings,” as the Armchair Expert co-host said — and they met more properly that sparks flew.
“I was with a friend and [at] halftime, we’re going to get some concessions and he starts talking to her, they know each other. And while they’re talking, she says, ‘Hey, you were at Shauna’s birthday party a couple weeks ago.’ And I go, ‘Oh ,yeah, yeah, yeah.'”
“And then we started talking and I thought, well how did I miss this? This is the most charismatic human I’ve ever met in my life,” he continued.
“And we started talking, talking, talking and we have never stopped talking or not been together for almost 17 years now.”
Bell also starred on the Feb. 18 episode of the PBS series and shared some of her own reflections on her and Shepard’s 11-year marriage.
“Dax kind of opened my mind — my marriage opened my mind – to the fact that the world is so much more grey than you think it is. And there’s so much more compassion to be had for the grey,” she said. “I feel like I’ve become a lot more authentically me since I’ve met my husband because he’s been such a huge safety net of like — it’s okay if you do things that you regret.”
“But most of all what I think I’ve learned is that life can — if you choose — really be about having fun with someone. It can be,” she continued.
“Look, we fight just as much as any other couple. But there’s a trusting foundation underneath it that we’ve got each other.”
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Finding Your Roots airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on PBS.
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