This may be hard to digest, but Dax Shepard was completely smitten with another woman before he met Kristen Bell.
On Monday, Shepard’s podcast “Armchair Expert” published an episode with Kate Hudson, in which the two discussed their short-lived, yet seemingly intense, romance that took place sometime in 2007 — shortly before Shepard met Bell.
Looking back on their relationship, the two actors were able to be completely candid about why they got together and eventually broke up — which Hudson described as a “mutual-esque” decision, noting they were “in different places” in their lives.
“I felt very ‘less than’ around you quite often,” Shepard told Hudson. He went on to explain that, at the time, he had been in a bunch of failed projects and didn’t think he’d ever get hired again. Hudson, on the other hand, was experiencing what Shepard described as the “apex of business.”
When they began dating, Hudson had two big hits — “Almost Famous” and “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” — under her belt and would soon go on to star in 2008’s “Fool’s Gold.”
“I felt very much like, ‘Fuck, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m following this person around as they do things I wish I were doing,’” Shepard admitted to Hudson. “I felt all kinds of inadequacy in that position.”
“But you also said that you really wanted a ‘we’ in your life and that you felt that it was just about me,” Hudson responded, who at the time was 28, recently divorced from her husband (Chris Robinson) and adjusting to all of it while raising her first child.
Yet the two were quick to admit that their “personalities are super compatible,” as Hudson put it and that they “laughed our asses off.”
“[Our relationship] started as a joke!” Shepard said.
He went on to explain that the two first met at a party at Toby Maguire’s home and immediately hit it off. The two were in other relationships at the time but quickly sparked a friendship.
A year or two went by, and both found themselves single and at a dinner together at the famed Malibu restaurant Nobu.
“At the dinner, there was a bunch of paparazzi outside,” Shepard said, noting that at the time Hudson had recently broken it off with her “You, Me and Dupree” co-star Owen Wilson, whom Hudson dated after her divorce from Robinson.
“And while we were there, we said, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if we came out holding hands? And I was your new boyfriend,’” Shepard said. “We were just pals.”
He continued: “And then we added, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if her new boyfriend didn’t wear a shirt at Nobu?’”
So, the two decided to pull off the stunt.
“I almost peed in my pants, it was so funny … then I wanted to have sex with him,” Hudson said jokingly. “It was like the perfect move.”
The two then engaged in what Shepard estimates was a three-month relationship, the first in 15 years during which he was actually monogamous, he said.
He added that while dating Hudson he learned how to better communicate and be vulnerable thanks to the fights or “big old barn burners” the two would frequently engage in.
“Honestly, I wasn’t giving Dax what he needed and I was making choices that were not relationship focused,” Hudson admitted. “It got hot fast … and I wasn’t prepared.”
“I was 32 going, ‘Whoever I date next has to be the one,’” Shepard said. “‘I want to have kids.’”
“Well, then you met your wife,” Hudson pointed out.
Bell and Shepard began dating in 2007 and are still together. Many fans find the couple’s marriage to be synonymous with the term “relationship goals” and, on many occasions, it has made them weep like Bell does in this now-iconic video:
To hear the episode in full, including information about Hudson’s new podcast with her brother Oliver, head over to “Armchair Expert.”
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