Bradley Cooper became a household name for playing the hard-partying Phil in The Hangover franchise — but off camera, he’s been sober since the early 2000s.
“I was so lost and I was addicted to cocaine,” Cooper said during a June 2022 appearance on Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes’ “Smartless” podcast, noting he got clean at age 29. “I severed my Achilles tendon right after I got fired-slash-quit Alias and struggled with zero self-esteem.”
Cooper was demoted to guest star status on Alias in 2003 after two years as a main character — a career setback that influenced his substance abuse. However, Arnett helped him see in 2004 that he was being an “a—hole,” and Cooper then proceeded to get sober.
Bradley Cooper Through the Years: From Guest Star to Leading Man
Cooper’s daughter, Lea, whom he welcomed in March 2017 with ex Irina Shayk, has since helped him remain on the wagon. “Every single thing is absolutely shaded by or brought out in glorious colors by the fact that I get to be a father to a wonderful human being,” Cooper said.
Scroll down to see more of Cooper’s honest quotes about sobriety:
‘I’m Going to Ruin My Life’
“I don’t drink or do drugs anymore,” Cooper told The Hollywood Reporter in September 2012, explaining that “being sober” helped “a great deal” with his rise in Hollywood.
Cooper recalled being “so concerned” with what people thought of him before he cut out substances. “I always felt like an outsider. I just lived in my head. I realized I wasn’t going to live up to my potential, and that scared the hell out of me. I thought, ‘Wow, I’m actually gonna ruin my life; I’m really gonna ruin it,’” he explained.
While Cooper’s friends repeatedly told him to slow down, it took a while for him to make the change. “Part of me believed it, and part of me didn’t. But the proof was in the pudding: I’d always gotten up at the crack of dawn, and that was out the window,” he said. “I remember looking at my life, my apartment, my dogs, and I thought, ‘What’s happening?’”
Self-Sabotage
“If I continued it, I was really going to sabotage my whole life,” Cooper told GQ in December 2013 of his substance abuse. “I think work was getting f–ked up. The one thing that I’ve learned in life is the best thing I can do is embrace who I am and then do that to the fullest extent, and then whatever happens, happens. The more steps I do to not do that, the farther I am away from fulfilling any potential I would have.”
The Oscar nominated actor recalled feeling a weight lifted when he started filming projects sober. “I was doing these movies, and I got to meet Sandra Bullock and meet these people and work with them,” he said. “And I’m sober, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m actually myself. And I don’t have to put on this air to be somebody else, and this person still wants to work with me? Oh, what the f–k is that about?’ I was rediscovering myself in this workplace, and it was wonderful.”
Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
A ‘Beautiful’ Change
During a December 2015 interview with Barbara Walters, Cooper revealed that it wasn’t “difficult” to become sober. Instead, he called it a “beautiful” and “unbelievable” transformation.
“I would never be sitting here with you [if I didn’t change]. I wouldn’t have been able to have access to myself or other people or even been able to take in other people if I hadn’t changed my life,” Cooper said. “I never would have been able to take care of my father when he was sick. So many things.”
The Moment He Knew He Had a Problem
Cooper attributed pal Arnett, who was his roommate early on in his career, with helping him face his addiction. “Will was like, ‘Hey man, do you remember we had dinner the other night? How do you think that went?’” Cooper recalled during a June 2022 appearance on Arnett’s “Smartless” podcast. “I remember being at the dinner thinking I was so funny, and I thought these two guys who were my heroes thought that I was so funny.”
Cooper thought the dinner was a success, but Arnett remembered it differently. “I was like ‘I thought it was great. I thought I was killing.’ Will Arnett was like, ‘You were a real a—hole, man. You were a real a—hole,’” he told listeners. “That was the first time I ever realized I had a problem with drugs and alcohol. The guy that I think is doing mean humor is telling me the truth and it changed my entire life.”
Stars Who Got Sober
Cooper confessed: “Will took that risk of having that hard conversation with me in, like, July of 2004 and that put me on a path of deciding to change my life. It truly was Will Arnett. He is the reason.”
19 Years Sober
“I didn’t get lost in fame. In terms of alcohol and drugs, yeah [I had wild years]. But nothing to do with fame, though,” Cooper said during a July 2023 episode of National Geographic’s Running Wild with Bear Grylls: The Challenge. “But I was lucky. I got sober at 29 years old, and I’ve been sober for 19 years. I’ve been very lucky.”
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