Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard tried to move on from the recent controversy about their marriage with a hilarious story about their ill-fated attempts to decorate for the holidays.
While appearing Tuesday on Jimmy Kimmel Live, the married couple recounted how Dax’s best friend could have been seriously injured after he nearly fell off their roof while he was hanging their Christmas lights.
They had turned to Dax’s pal for a cheap alternative after they balked at an shocking $17,000 quote for putting their holiday decorations up.
Jimmy prompted the story after saying someone who lived near the couple told him that they already had their decorations up well before Thanksgiving, and Dax clarified that they went up the day after Thanksgiving.
After the host asked if Dax hangs the lights and decorations himself, he replied hesitantly, ‘I did,’ before adding, ‘But then my wife made too much money, and now I don’t.’
He explained that the couple — who came under fire from fans for an ‘insensitive’ post Kristen made about Dax’s vow never to murder her — he explained that they wanted to have even more extreme decorations for their house in Nashville, Tennessee, but they thought the $17,000 it would cost for professionals to do the job was ridiculous.
Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard described how they hired his best friend to do their Christmas lights this year — and how he nearly died in the process — while on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Tuesday
The couple were quoted $17K to decorate their Nashville house, so instead Dax called up his friend and asked him to do it for 3K, or less than 1/5th of the job’s value
‘It is crazy how much it costs if you don’t do it yourself,’ Jimmy interjected. ‘It’s like you’re being punished by Santa or something.’
Dax added, ‘It’s as if they’re gonna make a bronze bust of someone in your front yard.’
The couple decided to forego the professional and have the decorations put up on the cheap by Dax’s best friend, whom they would fly out from Detroit.
Instead of the $17,000 they were quoted, Dax said he offered his friend — who knew his way around the exterior of a house after being a roofer for 25 years — just $3,000 for the job.
Dax said it would be a ‘windfall’ for his buddy, before complicating the picture when he mentioned that his friend also hadn’t been up on a roof in nearly two decades.
‘And he’s your closest friend, whom you’re paying less than 1/5th of the job’s value,’ Jimmy said to laughter from the audience.
Dax admitted he was worried his best friend could fall off the roof, so he called up him up before his flight to share his second thoughts.
The podcaster’s friend tried to calm him by mentioning that he would brings ropes along for safety.
Dax admitted that he worried about his friend’s safety, before revealing that he actually did fall off the roof — but safety ropes that he brought along saved him. He joked that their contractor managed to snap photos of his friend hanging
Kristen added that Dax’s friend did way more than they expected, and now the house ‘looks like it’s on colorful fire’; pictured heading to the taping in Hollywood on Tuesday
Dax recalled telling him, ‘I don’t want to be delivering your eulogy and saying, “Some people say I saved your life by sending you to treatment. But I definitely murdered you by having you put Christmas lights up at my house.’
Jimmy added that it would have been because he was ‘too cheap.’
Then Dax shocked the audience by revealing that his friend did fall from the roof — but he was saved at the last minute by the safety ropes he had brought along.
‘It did catch him right before he fell over the ledge,’ Dax said, and Kristen added that it looked ‘like Mission: Impossible.’
‘Luckily, our contractor was there and photographed the whole thing, so we have great photos of Aaron hanging. We’ll think of it this Christmas as we’re enjoying the lights. He went way over the top.’
Kristen added that Dax’s friend did way more than they expected, and now the house ‘looks like it’s on colorful fire.’
The couple also joked that the lights may never come down because of how much effort went into putting them up.
Dax and Kristen also joined Jimmy in a game in which they had to alternate saying on thing they were thankful for.
The couple were joining Kimmel shortly after coming under fire for an anniversary post in which Kristen revealed that Dax previously joked about murdering her; pictured in 2023 in NYC
The game ended which Kristen repeated something Dax was thankful for — ‘nicotine’ — even though Jimmy admitted that wasn’t against the rules.
The couple’s funny story comes after they were engulfed in controversy over the off-hand way Kristen recounted Dax’s past pledge not to kill her while celebrating their anniversary.
The Forgetting Sarah Marshall star 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.”❤️’
The post was almost universally panned on social media, where it was described as a ‘wildly sad and insensitive’ thing to say.
Kristen was taken to task by domestic violence survivors and their advocates in particular.
In the wake of the post, other incidents in which Dax joked about harming his wife came to light, while insiders shared disturbing details of their turbulent marriage with the Daily Mail exclusively.
