Shepard opened up about grieving his late father in an interview with Anderson Cooper
Credit: CNN
NEED TO KNOW
- Dax Shepard recalled Kristen Bell surprising him in Detroit in 2012 while she was seven months pregnant and he was caring for his dying father
- The actor’s late father, Dave Shepard, died after being diagnosed with small-cell carcinoma in 2012
- Shepard teared up while recounting Bell’s touching gesture in an interview with Anderson Cooper ahead of the release of his new memoir
Dax Shepard shed tears recounting his wife Kristen Bell's touching gesture as he cared for his dying father.
Shepard, 51, shared the story in a new interview with Anderson Cooper, during which he and the CNN journalist spoke about grief. The Parenthood alum discussed his father Dave Shepard's longtime health struggles and addiction journey, culminating in a diagnosis of small-cell carcinoma in 2012.
While the actor expressed gratitude for the many well-wishers from his father's time in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), he recalled that they "put me in the position of them grieving and me having to comfort them."
"These were people who had been through AA with your dad, and he really showed up for them," Cooper, 58, noted.
Shepard explained that he grew to "resent" this feeling as he was grappling wit his own grief. He stepped out of the Detroit area hospital to talk to his then-fiancée Bell, 45, who was seven months pregnant at the time.
"It's okay," Shepard recalled Kristen, who he called "intuitive like crazy," saying on the phone. "I'm here. Look to the left."
"Mind you, we live in California and I'm in Detroit," Shepard continued through tears. "And I look to my left and she's standing there, seven months pregnant. She had flown, she knew I was struggling and she had flown and not told me and figured out where this hospital was and was standing next to the car. What a champ, you know?"
The couple then got to introduce Dave to his unborn grandchild in the hospital room.
“He got to feel her belly,” Shepard said, as a photo of the emotional was shared on a screen to applause from the audience. “Look how cute she looks with that belly,” he said with a laugh. Shepard previously shared the photo on Instagram in June 2022 to mark Father's Day.
Credit: Stefanie Keenan/Getty
Dave Shepard died just three months before Shepard and Bell's daughter Lincoln was born.
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Cooper himself has experienced profound grief, giving him a unique perspective on the subject in interviews. When he was just 10 years old, his father, actor and writer Wyatt Cooper, died unexpectedly during open-heart surgery at age 50. Cooper's mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, died in 2019 at the age of 95.
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