Kristen Bell has recruited her own daughters to keep tabs on Dax Shepard when she travels.
The “Nobody Wants This” star, 46, revealed on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” Thursday that Lincoln, 13, and Delta, 11, act as her “mole on the ground” while she is out of town. Bell explained that her husband and their two daughters tend to get “mischievous” whenever she leaves.
“Whenever I leave town, I usually receive, almost immediately, notifications on my phone, ‘You’re McDonald’s has been delivered.’ ‘Your Taco Bell has been delivered.’ They just eat fast food,” she shared on the NBC program.
“But here’s what he didn’t consider, I have a mole on the ground, obviously,” Bell joked during the interview.
Lincoln has been sending her mother what Bell described as “in-house paparazzi photos” documenting Shepard’s activities. In one image, the girls’ bedtime had arrived, but Shepard, 51, was instead “in the cereal cupboard just going hogwild.”
“She took sneaky photos,” Fallon quipped.
“That’s my girl right there!” Bell fired back proudly.
The spy-game confession came the same day Bell gave a raw interview to Bustle about the difficulties of marriage and parenting.
“It’s hard,” she told the outlet Thursday. “Do not think because I am on your television that it is easy for me.”
Bell divulged that she cries weekly while navigating what she called “brutal” challenges in her family life.
The actress explained that she speaks openly about these struggles so other parents don’t feel alone.
“For the good of the people, we should share our dirty stories, we should share our shame, we should share our hardships. But for the good of the one? My main job in life is to protect those two,” she continued.
Bell also told Bustle that she avoids projects that “pull [her] away from [her] kids too much,” adding that she would abandon her career entirely rather than miss something significant in Lincoln and Delta’s lives.
“I would easily let my whole career and all its legacy and notoriety [disappear] tomorrow if it meant sacrificing something major in my kids’ lives, or not being there,” she explained.
Shepard has been equally candid about their unconventional parenting approach. On his “Armchair Expert” podcast in November 2025, the comedian stated that he and Bell deliberately raise “entitled” and “disrespectful” daughters who are “unruly” and “talk back.”
“I want them to always advocate for themselves, whether I think they’re right or wrong,” he said of the decision.
The couple’s transparency about family life has generated headlines for years. Bell has previously discussed letting her children drink non-alcoholic beer and allowing them to use curse words.
Shepard regularly explores parenting tactics on his popular podcast, while Bell has become increasingly selective about her work schedule since becoming a mother in 2013.
Bell’s dual interviews Thursday offered a window into a marriage built on mutual candor, even when that means her own children are enlisted as surveillance operatives against their father.
Bell is set to continue her press tour for “Nobody Wants This” with additional late-night appearances in Los Angeles.