Bradley Cooper Urged Dax Shepard To Open Up About Relapse

Bradley Cooper convinced Dax Shepard to be honest about his relapse in 2020.

The 49-year-old star has finally revealed the 'Maestro' actor, also 49, was the "close friend" who encouraged him to be open about his struggles with addiction in an effort to help other people dealing with similar issues.

Speaking on Jesse Tyler Ferguson's 'Dinner's On Me' podcast, he recalled telling Bradley: "I don't want to admit to it. Just, to be honest, I'm so afraid of losing that thing that people liked about me, and that I might be helping people."

His friend replied: "Well, let me tell you this. There's nothing helpful about a guy that's 16 years sober and married to Kristen Bell and is rich. What's helpful to somebody is someone who just... gets back up."

He recalled: "And I was like, 'Wow.' So, if I'm sincere about what I like about it is that I'm being helpful, then I really have only a single option."

Dax admitted that conversation - which took place over burger and fries at the Cara Hotel in West Hollywood - was "kind of the tipping point", after Bradley had initially asked why he didn't want to open up to people about his relapse.

He explained: "Kristen's out in the world, doing tons of interviews.

"I don't want her to have to spend half of every interview, 'What's it like being married to an addict?' Like, it just doesn't feel fair to her."

Back in September 2020, Dax opened up on his own 'Armchair Expert' podcast that a "close friend" had encourage him to be honest about his relapse two weeks earlier which came as he started to rely on pain medication during recovery from surgeries after a motorcycle accident.

He said at the time: "I'm lying to other people and I know I have to quit. But my tolerance is going up so quickly, that I'm now in a situation where I'm taking, you know, eight 30s a day, and I know that's an amount that's going to result in a pretty bad withdrawal.

"And I start getting really scared, and I'm starting to feel really lonely. And I just have this enormous secret."