In a recent interview with Glamour, Brooke Shields revealed Bradley Cooper came to her aid after she suffered a grand mal seizure just before a performance of her one-woman show Previously Owned by Brooke Shields at Cafe Carlyle in NYC back in September.
Shields shared she was feeling a little off and her friends were even questioning if she was okay before even arriving at the venue. Once there, though, the actor and model said she wandered about and ended up at the restaurant L’Artusi.
She told Glamour:
"...I walked to the corner—no reason at all. I’m like, 'Why am I out here?' Then I walk into the restaurant L’Artusi, and I go to the sommelier who had just taken an hour to watch my run-through."
That's when she began having the seizure:
"Everything starts to go black. Then my hands drop to my side and I go headfirst into the wall."
"I start having a grand mal seizure... frothing at the mouth, totally blue, trying to swallow my tongue."
When she came to, she was being lifted into an ambulance with Cooper by her side.
"The next thing I remember, I'm being loaded into an ambulance. I have oxygen on."
"And Bradley f**king Cooper is sitting next to me holding my hand."
Shields elaborated on what was going through her mind in that moment:
"I didn’t have a sense of humor. I couldn’t really get any words out."
"But I thought to myself, 'This is what death must be like.' You wake up and Bradley Cooper’s going, 'I’m going to go to the hospital with you, Brooke,' and he’s holding my hand."
"And I’m looking at my hand, I’m looking at Bradley Cooper’s hand in my hand, and I’m like, 'This is odd and surreal.'"
As it turns out, after the sommelier at L’Artusi tried to reach Shields' husband Chris Henchy who was not nearby, Henchy's assistant reached another assistant who somehow found out Cooper was in the area.
"His assistant called Bradley and said, 'Brooke’s on the ground. Chris isn’t around. Go get her.' And he came, and somebody called the ambulance. And then it was like, I walked in with Jesus."
Shields met Cooper when the two filmed the 2008 movie The Midnight Meat Train together—and they've been friends ever since.
People on social media applauded Cooper for stepping in and being by Shields' side throughout the ordeal.
Shields revealed to the magazine that her seizure was the result of low sodium from drinking too much water.
"Low sodium. I had had too much water. I flooded my system, and I drowned myself."
"And if you don’t have enough sodium in your blood or urine or your body, you can have a seizure."
"I was drinking too much water because I felt dehydrated because I was singing more than I’ve ever sung in my life and doing a show and a podcast. So they were just like, 'Eat potato chips every day.'"
We're so glad she's feeling better—and that Bradley Cooper was by her side!