Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell 'Don't Bathe Their Kids Everyday' — Couple's Bizarre Parenting Confession Resurfaces Amid Domestic Abuse Joke Controversy
Newly resurfaced comments by the controversial couple revealed questionable bathing habits with their daughters.
Nov. 13 2025, Published 4:19 p.m. ET
Bonkers confessions from Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell about their children's bathing habits have resurfaced, after the comedian revealed he and his wife are raising their daughters to "talk back" and be "disrespectful."
Allowing their kids to be rude is just the latest cringeworthy comment from the controversial couple about their parenting style, as the duo made questionable revelations in 2021 about not bathing their children.
'I Wait For the Stink'
Shepard and Bell have shared plenty of photos of their daughters but have never revealed the girls' faces.
During an August 2021 appearance on The View, the oversharing couple discussed why they waited for daughters Lincoln, 12, and Delta, 10, to start smelling bad before they had them shower or take a bath.
"We bathed our children every single night prior to bed as their routine, then somehow they just started going to sleep on their own without their routine, and we had to start saying [to each other] like, 'Hey, when was the last time you bathed them?'" Shepard, 50, explained.
Bell, 45, jumped in to add, "Yeah, we'd forget," while revealing that they'd realize it was time for bathing once the kids gave off an odor.
"I'm a big fan of waiting for the stink. Once you catch a whiff, that's biology's way of letting you know you need to clean it up. There's a red flag. Honestly, it's just bacteria; once you get bacteria, you gotta be like, 'Get in the tub or the shower,'" The Good Place alum proudly shared. "I wait for the stink."
Less Bathing as the Kids Got Older
Bell claimed body odor was a sign of when she needed to have her kids bathe.
Bell doubled down on her controversial comments on The View with an interview less than a week later on Daily Blast Live.
"It's not so much of a joke that I wait for the stink. That tells you when they need to bathe," she defiantly declared.
Shepard explained how they weren't always so lax with their children's body-cleansing habits.
"We had said, we did bathe them religiously for the first few years when the bedtime routine was so vital," The Armchair Expert podcast host shared.
"Once that wasn't required to get them to go to sleep, yeah, we took our foot off the gas," he added.
Questionable Hygiene Habits
Bell often goes makeup-free in her persona life.
The TMI-filled couple went on to discuss their own hygienic habits.
"I'll just say, for America, Kristen has better hygiene than I," Shepard confessed about the Nobody Wants This star. "So I think in general, because Kristen wears makeup more often than I do, she has to take it off."
Since Shepard scaled back his acting career in favor of podcasting, he revealed he didn't have to wash as often because he rarely wore on-set makeup anymore. As a result, he cut dramatically back on his showering routine.
"I'm not in that stuff that often, so I only have to (bathe) when either a smell is present or I'm in that stuff," the Buddy Games star explained, while adding that his bathing habits "could be better."
Bell tried to snark that climate conditions were a great excuse to save water by not showering very often.
"This is the other thing — California has been in a drought forever," the Frozen star began to rationalize. "It's just like, responsibility for your environment. We don't have a ton of water, so when I shower, I'll grab the girls and push them in there with me so we all use the same shower water."
'Tone-Deaf' Domestic Violence Joke
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Bell was piled on for the crass post during Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
The resurfaced comments about bathing come as Bell was slammed for joking about domestic abuse in an October wedding anniversary post to Shepard.
She 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,'" which some fans called "tone deaf."
