Bradley Cooper Says He’s “Not Sure” He Would Be Alive if Not for His Daughter

Bradley Cooper is opening up about how becoming a father has helped ground him in life.

During an appearance on Monday’s episode of the Armchair Expert With Dax Shepard podcast, the Maestro actor-director-producer revealed, “I’m not sure I’d be alive if I wasn’t a dad.”

Cooper and Irina Shayk, who dated from 2015 to 2019, welcomed their daughter, Lea, in 2017.

“I just needed someone to say, like, ‘We’re gonna drop this massive anchor,’” the Oscar-nominated actor told Shepard. “I’m like, ‘Why? We’re speeding! I just got an upgrade on the boat, and I know where the wind’s coming in.’ They’re like, ‘No, no, no, there’s a tsunami coming in, and you need an anchor and we’re gonna drop it.’ Because this is gonna dictate everything you do from now on. Your DNA is going to tell you that there’s something more important than you.”

Cooper later admitted that when his daughter was first born, he initially didn’t understand when other parents would say, “I would die in a second for my kid.” For the first couple of months of her life, he thought, “I don’t even know if I really love the kid. It’s dope. It’s cool. I’m watching this thing morph,” but then he said his feelings and perspective changed in an instant. “All of a sudden, it’s like no question,” the actor explained.

The Star Is Born actor has also been open about his past struggles with addiction and previously said he feels “very lucky” to have since overcome them, and he is going on nearly 20 years sober.

Elsewhere on the podcast, Cooper noted that being a father led him to want to work on himself to become the best version he could be because he wanted “to do the least amount of damage that I could do to my daughter.”