Kristen Bell skipped her appearance on the Today show amid backlash over her anniversary tribute to husband Dax Shepard.
Bell, 45, was set to appear on the NBC morning show on Wednesday, October 22, alongside Nobody Wants This costar Justine Lupe, according to the program’s schedule.
Lupe, 36, however, talked about season 2 of the Netflix series alone. At one point, the actress recalled the prank she pulled on Bell.
“Kristen’s obsessed with pranks. She will come to set and she’ll just pull up different pranks on her phone and show them to me. So I knew that that was kind of her love language, was pranking,” Lupe said. “And then I also know that Kristen — if you’ve met her, you know she’s obsessed with biohacking. She’s done everything there ever is to do with hacking the bod.”
Lupe explained that Bell has a glucose monitor, wears a weighted vest in between takes and “pumps iron” — which led Lupe to create a prank to “play into that.”
“Basically, I was like, I’m going to convince her that I’m drinking my own pee. For two months, I staged different variations of me drinking fake pee, which was actually chamomile tea,” Lupe said, noting that Bell “fully believed” the prank and asked a doctor about whether it is “safe.”
A day before the TV appearance, Bell posted a carousel of images from the Nobody Wants This press tour via Instagram. In one clip, Bell sat beside costar Adam Brody as fellow castmates Lupe, Timothy Simons and Jackie Thon were positioned behind the duo.
“Lewks and Prezz day 1 & 2 @nobodywantsthisofficial 🛏️ ❤️,” she shared via Instagram. “(Used a bed b/c emoji doesn’t have a nightstand IYKYK and if you don’t know then you’ll know on oct 23).”
Last week, Bell sparked criticism online after honoring her and Shepard’s milestone moment. In the post, Bell shared a photo of the couple embracing and wrote, “Happy 12th wedding anniversary to the man who once said to me: ‘I would never kill you. A lot of men have killed their wives at a certain point. Even though I’m heavily incentivized to kill you, I never would.’”
In the comments section, some users pointed to the message behind the caption.
“Domestic violence isn’t a joke,” one user wrote, while 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.”
The official Instagram account for Dateline also weighed in, writing, “Screenshotted.”
Other users, however, did not agree with the commenters criticizing Bell.
“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!”
Bell has since limited her comments on Instagram.
Bell tied the knot with Shepard in 2013, the same year that the couple welcomed daughter Lincoln. In 2014, Bell and Shepard added daughter Delta to their family.
Through the years, Bell and Shepard have pulled back the curtain on their romance. In September, Shepard revealed he would still think his relationship with Bell was a win even if they ever decided to call it quits.
“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 an episode of his “Armchair Expert” podcast at the time. “Like, we loved each other to death. We had these two beautiful children. We had this great time together.”
