Dax Shepard Reacts to Rumor He and Wife Kristen Bell Are 'Swingers'

While appearing on Monday's Season 5 premiere of The Drew Barrymore Show, the actor weighed in on the story, and also shared how the couple's celebrity friends reacted to the wild rumor.

"There was the most exciting tabloid story that we were Hollywood swingers, and we hosted swing parties, this was in the tabloids," said Shepard, 49. "My favorite part of that happening was we got a lot of texts from other friends of ours saying, 'How could you not have invited me to the swinger party?'"

"I mean they were teasing, of course, because they know us and they know we are not hosting swinger parties," he added.

The Armchair Expert podcast host -- who shares daughters Lincoln, 11, and Delta, 9, with Bell -- said the couple's celebrity pal Jimmy Kimmel even reached out to him.

"I just thought that was great to receive a text from Kimmel saying, 'My feelings are quite hurt that Molly [McNearney, his wife] and I weren't invited to this swingers party," Shepard told Barrymore. "[It] was very funny."

Barrymore then jokingly asked Shepard if there is anyone he and Bell "fantasize getting in bed with."

"There's a lot of hot couples out there, but no, we have not crossed that divide with anyone," he replied, before revealing the celebrity he and his wife are "in love with."

"You know who we are most in love with? We're in love with Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen," Shepard said. "Oh my God they are so dreamy as a couple. You just kind of want to be in their marriage. It's not so much that Kristen even wants to bring me along or I want to bring her along. You just want to kind of be in their marriage."

This comes a little over a year after Shepard and Bell first addressed the swinging rumor.

During an August 2023 episode of Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast, per EW, Bell shared that she thinks that the accusations the couple are swingers came from her husband's "key-party jokes" he would make when friends would come over to their house.

"We'll have a dinner party or something and, as we're sitting down, you'll say, ‘'Everybody leave your keys,'" she said. "Like, you use it as a joke."

Shepard revealed that he previously cracked the joke for some of his podcast guests, but the joke didn't really land, sharing that he learned that others "do not have the same sense of humor."?

"I was like, 'Hey, if you guys are ever in L.A. and you wanna swing!'" he recalled.

Bell pointed out that "a lot of people don't get jokes," adding, "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."