These days, Dax Shepard is living the life. He’s married to Kristen Bell, he’s got an adorable one-year-old daughter, and he stars on a hit series.
But back in 2003, Shepard was just getting his start as an actor on the Ashton Kutcher-hosted MTV prank show Punk’d.
At that time, Shepard was also an addict with violent tendencies – which may help explain why he almost kicked the crap out of Justin Timberlake while filming the first episode of Punk’d.
If you remember the show at all, then you probably remember the Timberlake prank – quite possibly the most epic punking that Kutch and company ever pulled off.
Shepard posed as a federal agent who had been tasked with seizing Timberlake’s home – and pretty much everything else that he owns – to settle a tax debt.
The prank itself wasn’t nearly as memorable as the response from Timberlake, who literally called his mom and then cried on national television.
Shepard recalled the stunt during an interview for Marc Maron’s podcast today and, well…it turns out things nearly got very ugly:
“At the end of the bit when Ashton comes out and says, ‘You’re on Punk’d blah, blah, blah, and everyone’s celebrating…the bit is over, the cameras are off and Timberlake keeps saying, ‘I was about to f–king punch you.'”
“I was like, ‘Hmmm…alright,’ ‘I was for real man. I was about to f–king punch you out’…I was thinking, how many times can I hear this dude in this golf outfit tell me he can punch me out before I’m just not going to be able to handle it.”
Shepard says it was at that point that Kutcher – who had given him specific instructions to not get physical with the prank victims – came over and said to Timberlake, ‘When were you gonna punch him? Before or after you were crying?”
Yes, Dax Shepard almost fought a whining Justin Timberlake. And that, friends, is why he gets to sex up Kristen Bell.
