Marcello Hernández Shows How Latino Men Can Talk About Women After Dax Shepard Brings Up Sabrina Carpenter

Marcello Hernández did not set out to make a cultural point when he sat down for a podcast interview. He answered a personal question about his dating life, offering a response that was calm, specific, and unembellished, one that placed him inside a much older conversation about how Latino men speak about women, how often they protect them publicly, and how rarely that protection comes without conditions.

The Saturday Night Live comedian, who is of Cuban and Dominican descent, was a guest on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert when the host brought up singer Sabrina Carpenter and asked whether Hernández was trying to date her. Shepard framed the question playfully, imagining himself at a younger age and wondering aloud if Hernández was pursuing the pop star.

Hernández did not deflect or soften the moment. He answered it directly.

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A Boundary Spoken Out Loud

“I’m in a relationship,” Hernández said. “Yeah, I’m in a relationship with a Dominican girl. She’s an architect. She’s unreal. She went to Yale.”

The response redirected the conversation away from speculation and toward a real person with a profession, a history, and a place in his life. According to E!, Hernández has been dating Ana Amelia Batlle Cabral for some time, and the two have appeared together publicly, including at an afterparty last spring and at the Happy Gilmore 2 premiere in July.

Shepard, who is married, treated the question as hypothetical. Hernández treated it as unnecessary. His answer carried no performance, no coyness, no attempt to leave possibilities open, only a simple description of who he is with and why that matters.

Respect Without Possession

Hernández still spoke warmly about Carpenter, who has shared the SNL stage with him and appeared in two of his recurring “Domingo” sketches after her song “Espresso” became the backdrop for the character’s first appearance. She also staged a playful mock arrest of Hernández during her Short n’ Sweet tour stop at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles in 2024, part of a recurring moment before the song “Juno.”

“Sabrina’s really, like, she’s down, she’s down to clown,” he said. “She’s down to think of something funny. She’s an actress.”

He added, “Sabrina’s awesome and she’s really funny and cool. She’s great.”

The admiration came without confusion between kindness and access, appreciation and entitlement, visibility and availability. It was a distinction that many Latina listeners noticed immediately.

Marcello Hernández Was Raised by Women

Hernández has often spoken about growing up in a household dominated by women. In his Netflix comedy special American Boy, released in January, he describes spending his childhood tagging along to his mother’s beauty appointments, including her Brazilian wax sessions, absorbing conversations about bodies, pain, beauty, and expectation long before most boys encounter any of it.

The stories arrive as comedy, but the perspective behind them is steady. He learned early how much labor hides inside appearance, how discomfort becomes routine, how judgment follows women closely, and how proximity never requires ownership. That background shaped how his podcast answer landed, especially within Latino communities where men from Caribbean cultures are frequently boxed into narrow stereotypes built around distance, betrayal, or emotional detachment.

Hernández offered something quieter and firmer without naming it. He acknowledged his partner. He respected another woman. He closed the subject.

A Different Kind of Visibility

Online, the clip circulated for reasons that had little to do with celebrity gossip. Many Latina viewers recognized the ease of naming a partner without apology, the refusal to perform availability, and the clarity of choosing respect without turning it into spectacle. Hernández never positioned himself as an example, never explained his values, never asked to be praised. He spoke about his life as it exists.

That simplicity became more noticeable given the broader conversation unfolding around Shepard himself. In a separate recent episode of the podcast, Shepard and his wife, Kristen Bell, spoke with Cher, during which Shepard asked the singer who her “dream partner” would be for Bell and openly suggested that Bell could do better. The moment spread quickly online and unsettled many listeners who felt it placed Bell in an unnecessary position while centering male insecurity rather than partnership. Cher responded with restraint, saying she trusted Bell’s judgment, and Shepard attempted to frame himself as supportive of his wife’s success, yet the exchange continued circulating as an example of how admiration for women often becomes tangled with control or comparison when spoken aloud.

Placed beside that backdrop, Hernández’s words landed differently. He identified his partner, spoke of her work, closed the door on speculation, and still offered generosity toward another woman without blurring any lines. There was no effort to dominate the moment and no need to protect his ego in public.

He spoke plainly about who he loves and where he stands.

For many Latina listeners, that carried its own meaning.