As revealed by the Academy Award nominee, he found himself at the other end of a sharp knife in New York City back in 2019.
Cooper recalls a harrowing incident with a knife-wielding assailant
It’s not unusual for Cooper to make headlines. What is not common is for it to involve a real-life incident featuring him and a stranger. According to the actor, Cooper found himself at the mercy of a dangerous individual while on his way to pick up his then-4-year-old daughter, Lea. He explained in an interview on the Armchair Expert Podcast that before the pandemic, he was on the subway at “11:45 to pick Lea downtown at Russian school” only to find himself “held up at knifepoint” en route. He describes the incident as “pretty insane” and something that made him realize that he’d “gotten way, way too comfortable in the city.” Thankfully, he was able to walk away from the incident unscathed. He recalls how he “jumped over the turnstile, hid around the white, tiled foyer entrance” before taking photos of the unknown assailant as he attempted to chase him up the stairs. The actor didn’t mention what happened to the culprit, but he did add that he took a few photographs of the individual and showed them to police offers. Cooper’s experience isn’t an isolated case. Celebrities face these kinds of dangers all the time. Cooper, for example, thought that the assailant was just a fan looking to take a picture with him. Because of what society expects of them, Cooper and other celebrities have no choice but to keep their respective guards down, which he did. This leaves him open to such dangers. Worse still is how often this happens to average individuals, with as many as 1,271 robbery attempts reported in New York City in September 2021. While Cooper is lucky that he walked away safe from the mugging attempt, things could have easily taken a turn for the worse.
