Hey, Upper East Siders, Gossip Girl here—it turns out that Hollywood’s golden couple may not have always been so smitten with each other. While Kristen Bell, best known for her roles in Gossip Girl, Frozen, and Nobody Wants This, first met actor and podcast host Dax Shepard at a friend’s birthday party in 2007, the two didn’t catch feelings right away.
However, after reconnecting at a Detroit Red Wings hockey game weeks later, Shepard, who rose to fame on MTV’s Punk’d, got his future wife’s number and sent her a bold and flirty first text. The rest was history.
Between then and now, the couple has starred together on screen, hosted an intimate wedding ceremony, and welcomed two children, all while celebrating each other’s successes and supporting each other’s careers.
Ahead, we break down their complete relationship timeline.
Kristen and Dax meet
2007
At an intimate birthday dinner for Shauna Robertson—the producer behind Bell’s breakout role in Forgetting Sarah Marshall—the future lovebirds meet.
Apparently, it was not love at first sight, though, as Shepard later admitted he found his future wife’s “unbridled happiness” suspicious, while Bell solely remembered how talkative he was. If they only knew then what the future held!
They attend a Detroit Red Wings game together
2007
Weeks after their initial chance encounter, Shepard and Bell reconnect at a Detroit Red Wings hockey game, where they bond over their shared home state of Michigan. The following day, he asks their mutual friend for her number and sends a bold but effective text: “I violated your privacy and got your number from Shauna. How do you feel about that?”
Kristen and Dax break up for four days
2007
Three months into dating, Shepard calls things off—for under a week. Fresh out of a nine-year relationship, the actor believes he’s not ready to jump into anything serious just yet.
In an interview with Popsugar, Bell later explains that he called her four days later to take it back. “He called me and he was like, ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. I was dating someone else but they’re just not as interesting as you, and I don’t know what I’m doing,’” she recalled.
Kristen and Dax share the screen for the first time
January 29, 2010
The couple make their on-screen debut as a duo in the 2010 romantic comedy When in Rome, which stars Bell as an unlucky-in-love New Yorker who takes a trip to Italy. Fortunately for her, one of her character’s love interests is played by her real-life beau, so the two get to turn filming into an Italian holiday of their own.
They announce their engagement at the Grammys
February 1, 2010
While they reportedly get engaged during the holidays, the couple make things public at the 2010 Grammys, walking the red carpet together with Bell’s new engagement ring on display.
