Dax Shepherd and Kristen Bell Terry Wyatt/FilmMagic/Getty Images
Dax Shepard is sharing the hilarious journey that was a group of fans trying to identify him and his wife, Kristen Bell.
Shepard, 49, recalled the experience in a series of photos and videos posted via Instagram on Thursday, November 21. The Parenthood alum and Bell, 44, were recently seated behind some curious audience members who couldn’t quite put their finger on the famous couple’s identities, leading one fan to search the internet high and low for some clues.
“This journey was insanely funny to witness,” Shepard captioned the post. “For the sake of time, this is heavily chopped down, but rest assured this exploration that started with a very general search ‘Romantic Movies’ took these sweet ladies a solid 13 minutes to refine. They were tenacious and stuck with it, and by God, they finally [figured] out why the people behind us were excited Kristen was there. Only to be topped by the greatest pay off of all time!!! Love, *Dak.”
In one clip, the woman in question could be seen scrolling through the “Romantic Movies” category on Netflix on her phone, followed by another scroll through a Google search of “popular shows on Netflix.” Another video showed the woman looking through the TV category on Netflix until she landed on Bell’s critically acclaimed romantic comedy series, Nobody Wants This.
The coup de grace came in Shepard’s final photo: a closeup of the woman’s text conversation with someone who hilariously got the “Armchair Expert” podcaster‘s name wrong.
“OMG!! We are sitting in front of Zach Shepherd and Kristen Bell!!!!” read the text from the woman in the audience, to which the other person said, “Dak*. But that’s so cool.”
Fans of Shepard and Bell could not get enough of the wild ride of (somewhat) mistaken identity, with one social media user writing, “The correction of Zach to Dak is taking me out.” Another said, “I love that in never occurred to her they you *might* be able to see her phone. Brightness up to 11, three feet away.”
Though the woman eventually figured out who Shepard and Bell were, this isn’t the first time Shepard’s identity has been questioned. During a 2019 interview on Sunday TODAY with Willie Geist, Bell confessed that she had “no idea” who Shepard was when they first met in 2007.
“The producer of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Shauna Robertson, who’s Judd Apatow‘s previous producing partner, had a birthday dinner — like, 10 people, maybe less, at a sushi restaurant,” she recalled at the time. “And I had just gotten out of a long-term relationship, like, two months prior. And in retrospect, I realize he had just gotten out of a long relationship.”
She continued, “We were sitting at a table. The only thing I remember is that he talked so much. This guy can ta-alk. And then I didn’t know who he was. I’m like, ‘Is that one of the guys from Jackass or something?’ … And then we left. There were no sparks whatsoever.”
The duo ended up crossing paths two weeks later at a hockey game, and Shepard’s bold move in asking their mutual friend for Bell’s number and texting her proved to be the right one.
“He’s so bold and that was my kind of person,” she added. “I was like, okay, starting it off with a really good joke that makes me feel, like, butterflies. I fell in love with him way before he fell in love with me.”
The longtime couple tied the knot in a courthouse ceremony in 2013 and share two daughters together: Lincoln, 11, and Delta, 9.