Dateline has entered the chat after Kristen Bell’s anniversary post for Dax Shepard sparked criticism.
The backlash began on Friday, October 17, when Bell, 45, shared a photo of her and Shepard, 50, to celebrate their marriage milestone.
“Happy 12th wedding anniversary to the man who once said to me: ‘I would never kill you,’” she wrote via Instagram. “‘A lot of men have killed their wives at a certain point. Even though I’m heavily incentivized to kill you, I never would.’”
Users quickly weighed in on the message in the comments section, including the official Instagram account for Dateline.
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“Screenshotted,” the account wrote, which led to comments from users including, “best comment award 🥇,” and “Dateline for the win!”
Other users added, “Domestic violence isn’t a joke.” 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.”
Other users had a different take on the caption.
“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!”
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Bell has since limited her Instagram comments.
Bell and Shepard tied the knot in 2013. The couple welcomed daughters Lincoln and Delta in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Through the years, Bell and Shepard have given fans glimpses into their romance — including their outlook on marriage.
“We don’t believe in The One. We don’t believe in the fairy tale. We don’t believe that you can meet someone and you have a perfectly matching personalities,” Shepard explained to Us Weekly in December 2017. “We are opposites and it has taken a tremendous amount of work and therapy for us to coexist. … [Relationships] are labor intensive. If you want them to last, they are labor intensive.”
Bell, meanwhile, admitted that the couple’s “marriage took a lot of work” and still “takes a lot of work.”
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“I don’t think people realize,” she told Us in August 2017. “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.”
In recent months, Shepard revealed he would look back on his time with Bell fondly if the pair ever split up.
“I say this all the time, like, if Kristen and I ever split up, I would only describe this as still an enormously successful relationship,” Shepard shared on a September episode of his “Armchair Expert” podcast. “Like, we loved each other to death. We had these two beautiful children. We had this great time together.”
