Bradley Cooper has opened up about fatherhood and raising his six-year-old daughter, Lea, whom he shares with his ex-partner, model Irina Shayk.
Bradley Cooper and Irina Shayk were one of the most surprising couples in Hollywood. The actor and the model made their relationship public in 2015 and two years later they welcomed their daughter, Lea de Seine Shayk Cooper. Finally, in 2019, the couple decided to end their relationship. Even so, both have done their part so that Lea barely notices this change by co-parenting her.
Irina and Bradley have been photographed walking with their daughter on several occasions, spending time together, and even going on a family summer vacation, as you can see in the video above. However, the couple has always tried to keep their daughter away from the media spotlight and have made few statements about the little girl, who is now 6 years old.
On this occasion, Cooper has shared with the podcast 'Running Wild with Bear Grylls: The Challenge' how the loss of his father, Charles Cooper, who died in 2011, affected the way he raised and educated his daughter.
"I wish my father was there to enjoy it more, but we all recognize how lucky we have been," Cooper said. "It was a blessing though. He gave me a great gift; he died in my arms. Seeing that kind of real example of mortality."
The actor has admitted that this event changed his way of seeing things: "I definitely had a nihilistic attitude afterward, for a while. I was just like, 'Wow, I'm going to die,'" he admitted. "It wasn't great for a while until I realized I had to accept who I really am and try to find peace with that. And then it leveled out."
"You learn from your predecessor's mistakes and I will do tons that, hopefully, Lea will learn from and then she will be rigorous with me to grow. To help lighten any of my shit," he confessed.
In June 2022, the actor also shared his experience with fatherhood during an episode of the 'SmartLess podcast: "Fatherhood is... everything changed. Every single thing is absolutely shaded, or put in glorious colors, by the fact that I get to be a father." of a wonderful human being."
"You have this wonderful thing or breakthrough with a script, or you have this wonderful moment on this set or in an editing room... you have like 40 of those moments every day with your daughter, that's that level of joy. That's not giving her turns, that's just the truth," he added.
In 2019, during an interview on 'The Ellen DeGeneres Show,' Cooper admitted that he loved watching cartoons and spending time with his daughter: "It allowed me to embrace my child self without any fear of judgment. Like I could play with toys all day and not feel like 'Is this weird?' Or watch cartoons non-stop and not think I'm wasting my life. I love cartoons," he said.
For her part, Shayk spoke to Elle in 2021 about raising Lea with Cooper and stated that he doesn't understand "the term co-parenting." "When I'm with my daughter, I'm 100% a mother, and when she's with her father, he's 100% her father. Co-parenting is parenting," he said.
