We’ve had our fair share of embarrassing moments. But thankfully, we haven’t accidentally sent a flirtatious text to our mother-in-law like Kristen Bell’s husband, Dax Shepard.
The 39-year-old actress appeared on a recent episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show and discussed the awkward encounter between Shepard and her mom, Lorelai. It all started during a text exchange when the 45-year-old actor mistook the smiley face emoji for the eggplant one.
In the clip, Bell reveals that her mom recently visited them in Los Angeles. “She was coming into town and sends [Shepard] a text like, ‘Be there by 11,’” Bell said. “And then sends something else that says, ‘Can’t wait to see you tonight.’ And he meant to respond smiley face, smiley face, smiley face, and instead he responds eggplant, eggplant, eggplant.”
Of course, Shepard immediately realized what happened, since the emoji has—er—sexual undertones. “When he did it, he went ‘Oh no! I made a huge mistake!’” Bell added. “And I was like ‘What?’ and he shows me the phone.”
The Frozen 2 star explained that the emoji made an innocent situation seem dirty, adding, “By the way, the minute you involve an eggplant emoji, the whole story changes. Which is not how the original [text] read, or what she intended, but thankfully she didn’t know what an eggplant emoji was.”
DeGeneres’s response? “She does now.”
Classic mix-up.