Brooke Shields revealed in a new interview with Glamor that she suffered a seizure in September and none other than Bradley Cooper unexpectedly rushed to the side to support her. The incident occurred at a restaurant in New York City while Shields was waiting to be seated at a table.
“Two women come towards me; I don’t know her. Everything starts to go black,” Shields recalled. “Then my hands fall to the side and I fall headfirst into the wall. I’m having a grand mal seizure…foaming at the mouth, completely blue, trying to swallow my tongue.”
“The next thing I remember is being loaded into an ambulance. I have oxygen on. And Bradley fucking Cooper is sitting next to me holding my hand,” Shields continued. “I really couldn’t think of any more words. But I thought to myself, ‘This is what death has to be like.’ You wake up and Bradley Cooper says, ‘I’m going to the hospital with you, Brooke,’ and he’s holding my hand. And I look at my hand, I look at Bradley Cooper’s hand in my hand and I think, ‘This is strange and surreal.'”
It turns out that the restaurant had originally tried to contact Shields’ husband, Chris Henchy, but he did not initially respond. Several assistants got involved and eventually Cooper was contacted because he happened to be nearby.
“His assistant called Bradley and said, ‘Brooke is down.’ Chris isn’t there. “Go get her,” Shields said. “And he came and someone called the ambulance. And then it was like I went in with Jesus.”
According to Shields, the seizure was triggered by low sodium levels and by “drinking too much water.”
“I flooded my system and drowned myself,” Shields said. “And if you don’t have enough sodium in your blood, urine or body, you can have a seizure. So as a 58-year-old woman, I’m not restricting my salt intake, okay? Stop making me a crazy actress or a woman who doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing. I drank too much water because I felt dehydrated from singing more than I ever have in my life and doing a show and a podcast. So they just said, ‘Eat potato chips every day.'”
The incident came just days after the world premiere of Cooper’s latest project, “Maestro,” which garnered widespread acclaim and immediate Oscar attention at the Venice Film Festival. Cooper did not attend the event because of the strikes.
Read Shields’ full interview with Glamor magazine here.