Bradley Cooper Opens Up About His Hysterical Parenting Fail

Bradley Cooper, an actor known for his various roles from "A Star is Born" to the recent "Licorice Pizza," welcomed his first daughter, Lea, in 2017. Cooper was dating model Irina Shayk at the time and has been co-parenting over the years since they separated.

"He's a full-on, hands-on dad — no nanny. Lea went on holiday with him for almost two weeks [and] I didn't call them once," Shayk revealed about Cooper during a 2021 interview with Highsnobiety. "Me and her father are very strict. When she finishes eating, she gets up from the table, takes her plate, says 'thank you.' Without 'please' or 'thank you' she's not getting anything. It's hard, because she has so many toys. I had one doll, and I still have this doll."

Now, Cooper has also shared his side of parenting, revealing in a new interview how his daughter Lea really felt after receiving a Christmas present — even with him and Shayk trying to instill manners into her childhood.

During a recent appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," available on YouTube, actor Bradley Cooper opened up about how the holiday season went. Specifically, he went into detail about how Lea's gift didn't quite live up to her expectations.

"For those of you that have kids, they really push that 'Ghostbusters' laser on every commercial in between cartoons, so she wanted that, so she had to get that. She got that," Cooper explained. However, the toy didn't come with a real laser like Lea had hoped. "It's just a little plastic thing, but you do capture the ghost," he said. "She wanted the real laser."

Cooper still loves being a parent, though. "I guess having a child, and having a family of my own — which is a miracle and something I've always dreamt of — has opened me up even more, I guess, to the day, and to be present," he told NPR in 2018.