Dax Shepard has broken his silence after a video showed him appearing to give his "surrogate daughter" a lap dance.
In an Instagram post on September 19, Shepard's wife Kristen Bell shared a tribute to her friend Hannah Anderson who had married her partner Bradley Mackeson.
Shepard and Bell attended the wedding and detailed that they had known Anderson since she was 16 years old and viewed her as their "surrogate daughter".
So when a video on the carousel showed Shepard giving Anderson a lap dance, eyebrows were raised because it isn't typical behavior for a father-daughter relationship... "surrogate" or not.
Check out the controversial video:One comment read: "I love this and it looks like an absolute [sic] beautiful day, but I’d be kinda weirded out if my 'dad' gave me a lap dance."
While a second comment added: "Surrogate daughter at 16 who gets lapdances from her Surrogate father at her wedding. No, not weird At all."
Due to the confusion, Shepard addressed the dance on his podcast Eff Won with DRS and put everyone's minds at easy.
"They pull a chair out and then they throw Hannah in the chair. And you kind of immediately realize like: ‘Oh, people are going to give her lap dances'," he said.
"A few different gals are giving her lap dances. I don’t know why I decide this, but I’m like, a girl should have a lap dance from a guy."
Shepard expressed that people found the whole lap dance incredibly funny, and nobody thought that it was weird at the time.
"Then as I walked away all of a sudden I thought: ‘Oh, c*** - her dad'," he continued. "Right before I walked over to the dance floor, I said: ‘Listen, we love being her surrogate parents!’"
During an episode of the Armchair Expert podcast in 2018, Shepard recalled how he and Anderson came to know each other when she was a high school student.
Shepard stumbled across Anderson's YouTube channel where she recorded her music and covers of popular songs, and he was particularly taken by her cover of 'Blood' by The Middle East.
"I wept. I listened to it over and over again," Shepard said. "Then I came home and I told Kristen: ‘Oh my God, you have to watch this girl sing.’"
"I also wept when I saw it," Bell replied. "It was so moving and sincere and honest and lovely."
After connecting on Twitter, the trio met when Anderson flew to California to compete in American Idol. It was noted that Shepard also developed a relationship with Anderson's parents.
After Anderson was voted off American Idol, she met the celebrity couple at their home for a meal and she performed for them, once again leaving them in tears.
It's clear that the trio have a strong bond, and Anderson herself has claimed that the lap dance was her "favorite wedding gift".
