Kristen Bell Details the Bizarre Way Dax Shepard Won Her Heart

On Tuesday’s episode of SiriusXM’s Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson & Woody Harrelson (Sometimes), the actress recalled how she and Shepard went from having “no chemistry” when they first met to an encounter years later that left her “smitten.”

And the moment that changed it all involved a piece of chewing gum.

Bell, 43, said she and Shepard, 49, were first introduced back in 2004 by comedy film producer Shauna Robertson. (She later produced 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which Bell starred in.)

She shared that Shepard was living with Robertson when he was getting his kitchen renovated, and they were close friends. Bell said she and Shepard were both invited to Robertson’s birthday party.

“At Shauna’s birthday party in 2004 … she had it at a little sushi restaurant on Melrose and there were like eight or nine of us there,” Bell recalled, sharing that she didn’t know anyone at the party aside from Jonah Hill.

“All I remember from that night was that guy from Jackass talks so much. Woah, he’s chatty, and he didn’t know who I was either, and obviously, he was not on Jackass, he was on Punk’d, but I didn’t know that at the time,” she added, referring to Shepard. “And then we had no chemistry that night.”

Bell and Shepard did not reconnect until years later when they both attended a Detroit Red Wings hockey game.

“I had just gotten out of a relationship. I was fresh on the scene. I was ready to mingle,” Bell recalled. “He was with my friend Michael, another mutual, and I saw Michael at the hockey game … I didn’t really know Dax, but I knew Michael, and I was like, ‘All right, we’re back, we’re single. We haven’t been single in years. This is gonna be great. I’m gonna go over and flirt with Michael.'”

“Thank God because it made the rest of my life … Michael was talking to someone else. Dax came up to me, and I was like, ‘Oh you were at Shauna’s dinner,'” she continued. “And he’s like, ‘Yeah, that’s right. I remember you, vaguely.’ He was like, ‘You were the girl that was bragging about something you just got from Target.'”

The Frozen star said she was “open to mingling” with Shepard, so they continued chatting, before Shepard made his move.

“I was chewing gum and he said, ‘Do you have any more gum?’ and I said, ‘No, just this,’ and I kind of coyly took it out of my mouth,'” Bell said. “And he grabbed it from me, and he goes, ‘I’ll take it,’ and then he put it in his mouth, and I was like, ‘This guy wants to f–k me.'”

“Truly beyond that [point], I was absolutely smitten,” she admitted, before praising her husband. “There’s so much to Dax Shepard. He’s so much deeper of a well than anyone realizes.”

“He’s so protective. He’s so loyal. He’s such a wordsmith. He’s so curious. He’s constantly researching things. He’s got new perspectives. He’s challenging himself. He’s self-critical.”

Bell and Shepard tied the knot in 2013. They share two daughters Lincoln, 11, and Delta, 9.