Detailing the scary experience in a new interview, the 'A Star Is Born' actor admits that his guard 'was down' when he's on a subway in New York City to pick up Lea at school.

• Nov 30, 2021

AceShowbiz - Bradley Cooper has recalled his nightmare experience. In a new interview, the "Nightmare Alley" actor detailed the moment when he was held at knifepoint while picking up his daughter.

"I used to walk around New York City all the time with these [headphones] on -- this was pre-pandemic," the "A Star Is Born" actor said in the Monday, November 29 episode of Dax Shepard's "Armchair Expert" podcast. "I was on the subway [at] 11:45 to pick Lea downtown at Russian school and I got held up at knifepoint."

Bradley shared, "It was pretty insane. I realized I had gotten way, way too comfortable in the city. My guard was down." The "Silver Linings Playbook" star remembered, "I was all the way at the end of the subway. Innately, I would just go all the way down to the end."

"I felt somebody coming up. I thought, 'Oh they want to take a photo or something,' " Bradley recalled. "As I turned, I'm up against the post like it's the French Connection or some s**t, and I turned. I looked down and I see a knife."

Bradley then stated that the knife was nearly three inches long and thought it was a "nice knife" with "some history" behind it. "I have my headphones on the whole time. I can't hear anything. I'm just listening to music. So it's scored, the whole thing was scored," the two-time Grammy winner explained with a laugh. "I can't remember [what I was listening to]. I look up, I see the person's eyes, and I'm taken by how young they are."

Bradley said that although he was taught to never run from a knife, he lifted his elbow and started running toward the exit. "I just started booking, just started running. I jumped over the turnstile, hid around the white, tiled entrance to the subway [and] took my phone out. He jumped over, running away. I took a photo of him," he added.

Bradley explained that he chased the culprit up the stairs before the assailant managed to escape by running up 7th Avenue. Though so, "The Hangover" actor admitted that he took two more photographs of the young man.

Bradley went on to say, "I ran down two police officers in an SUV, showed them the photograph and I'm, like, talking to them, and the guy kept saying -- it was so interesting -- he's like, 'Are you stabbed?' I was like, 'No, no.' He was like, 'Check to see if you're stabbed.' " That's when the 46-year-old actor learned that mugging victims are often so shocked, they don't realize until later that they've been injured.

Luckily, Bradley was fine. "Then I got back on the subway and picked up my daughter," the "American Sniper" actor told the listeners. The eight-time Oscar nominee then concluded, "It was crazy, bro."