Brooke Shields says actor Bradley Cooper went into full rescue mode after she had a recent health scare.
Shields recalled her friend Cooper coming to her aid after she had a grand mal seizure at a restaurant in New York City before a performance of her one-woman show, “Previously Owned by Brooke Shields,” at Cafe Carlyle in September.
The “Blue Lagoon” star explained in an interview with Glamour magazine that low-sodium levels had led to the serious episode, saying, “Everything starts to go black. Then my hands drop to my side and I go headfirst into the wall.”
Shields said she was “frothing at the mouth, totally blue, trying to swallow my tongue” before being loaded into an ambulance and given oxygen, with her former co-star Cooper holding her hand.
“I didn’t have a sense of humor,” the “Suddenly Susan” star admitted. “I couldn’t really get any words out.”
The absurdity of the situation wasn’t lost on Shields, however.
“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.’”
The “Star Is Born” filmmaker ended up on the scene after a sommelier at L’Artusi tried to reach Shields’ husband, Chris Henchy.
In messages relayed by various assistants, Cooper, who was already close to L’Artusi, rushed to help.
Though the seizure seemed to come out of nowhere to Shields, her doctors later told her that her body was reacting to dangerously low sodium levels.
“I flooded my system, and I drowned myself,” she told Glamour. “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.’”
Shields and Cooper became friends when they starred in the horror-mystery “The Midnight Meat Train” in 2008.
Last year, the pair were seen out to lunch together in New York, where they were joined by his daughter Lea and Shields’ girls Rowan and Greer Henchy.