Dax Shepard revealed that he and wife Kristen Bell intend to raise “disrespectful” daughters — even if their behavior seems “embarrassing” to others.
Shepard, 50, shared insight from a private conversation with a Nashville friend about the couple’s two daughters, Lincoln, 12, and Delta, 10, during a recent episode of his podcast Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard.
“She said it very kindly, but she’s basically like, they’re kind of shook with how our daughters will talk back to us or to anybody because it’s very un-Southern, right?” Shepard said on the episode, according to People. “Down there, everyone’s like, ‘Hi, Ms. Kristen.’ ‘Hi, Mr. Dax.’”
He continued: “And she’s like, ‘Yeah, your kids will let it rip.’ They seem to have no kind of respect, is what she was saying. And feeling a little entitled.”
The former Parenthood star acknowledged that his children’s behavior may seem “embarrassing” to the couple’s social circle.
“And I said, ‘You’re dead right,’” Shepard said on the episode. “‘They do talk back and they are not respectful. I can understand where that seems completely unruly, but I want you to know what I’m prioritizing, which is when they’re 19 and their boss is a f**king creep, I want them to talk back. I want them to be disrespectful. I want them to always advocate for themselves, whether I think they’re right or wrong.”
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The Punk’d alum added of his daughters’ attitudes: “I can handle that because I want this other thing for them as women.”
Shepard made the controversial comments following backlash aimed at Bell for an October Instagram post in celebration of the couple’s wedding anniversary — which coincided with Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
As Star previously reported, Bell, 45, posted a photo of the couple wrapped in an embrace that she captioned: “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.”
“Is this… supposed to be funny?” one Instagram user commented. Another wrote: “Domestic violence isn’t a joke.”
Others saw sarcasm, writing, “He totally missed out on a lucrative career in greeting cards. Happy anniversary” and “OMG, everyone takes everything so seriously these days.”