Actress Kristen Bell is once again defending her decision to let her two young daughters consume non-alcoholic beer, saying it’s a family ritual that began when her kids were babies.
The “Bad Moms” actress discussed her rationale during a July 24 appearance on “The Kelly Clarkson Show.” She and husband Dax Shepard share daughters Delta, 8, and Lincoln, 9. Shepard has been open about his previous struggles with alcohol and drug addiction.
“He’s a recovering addict,” Bell said of her husband, “but he likes non-alcoholic beer, so he’d pop one open, he’d have [our oldest daughter] on his chest, and we’d walk and look at the sunset.”
“As a baby, she was pawing at it, and sometimes she’d suck the rim of it. So I think it feels to her like something special, something daddy, something family,” she said.
The actress said the drinks contain zero percent alcohol. Bell, 43, also revealed that her daughters sometimes order non-alcoholic beer at restaurants.
“We’ve been at restaurants where she’s said, ‘Do you have any non-alcoholic beer?’ And I’m like, maybe we just keep that for home time,” Bell told Clarkson. “But then I’m sort of like, you can judge me if you want, I’m not doing anything wrong. That’s your problem.”
This isn’t the first time Bell has opened up about letting her children drink non-alcoholic beverages.
During a 2020 appearance on the “Say Yes! With Carla Hall” podcast, the star told the same story about her daughter being interested in putting her mouth on the bottle Shepard was drinking out of. Bell also said the family had “been at restaurants and ordered” non-alcoholic beer for their kids.
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“I’m going to get a lot of flak for this. And let me start by saying I don’t care. I’m a great parent, I think. I’m learning every day,” she said at the time. “It’s a sentimental thing for my girls, right? It makes them feel close to their dad.”
Per their website, the FDA “does not consider the terms ‘non-alcoholic’ and ‘alcohol-free’ to be synonymous. The term ‘alcohol-free’ may be used only when the product contains no detectable alcohol.”
The site goes on to stipulate that beverages labeled as “non-alcoholic” may “contain traces of alcohol (less than 0.5 percent alcohol by volume).”