Anybody can be a victim while walking down the streets. That is exactly what Bradley Cooper experienced. He is opening up about how he was caught off guard while he was on his way to pick up his son. He never thought that his comfort living in New York City would lead to a scary experience.

The Big Apple is one of the favorite places to have a home for many celebrities. This is where they are able to still be where things are happening and have the opportunity to live anonymously. But no matter how high-end this city is and how safe the streets seem to be, New Yorkers will tell you to never let your guard down.

This is something that Bradley seemed to forget after living in the city for so many years.

He was on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast and he shared how he was once held up at knifepoint while on the subway. He was on his way to pick up his now 4-year-old daughter, Lea. This scary encounter happened back in 2019.

While being a guest on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, Bradley Cooper opened up about a scary experience that taught him to be more aware of his surroundings.

The actor recalled, “I used to walk around New York City all the time with (headphones) on — this was pre-pandemic. I was on the subway, 11:45, to pick Lea up downtown at Russian school and I got held up at knifepoint. It was pretty insane. But I realized I had gotten way, way too comfortable in the city. My guard was down.”

Bradley then explained that at the time, he was not only wearing headphones, but he also had sunglasses and a hat on to so that nobody would recognize him. But what he didn’t realize was that doing so got him distracted that he was no longer vigilant of his surroundings.

He continued, “I’m all the way at the end of the subway — I would just innately go all the way down to the end — and I felt somebody coming up. And I thought, oh, they want to take a photo or something.”

But what happened next was something he never expected…

The man secretly told him that he had a knife. Bradly said, “I’m up against the post like it’s ‘The French Connection’ or some [expletive], and then I, like, turned. I looked down and I see a knife. I remember thinking, ‘oh, it’s a nice knife.’ I have my headphones on the whole time. So I can’t hear anything. I’m just listening to music. So it’s scored, the whole thing is scored.”

And the next thing he did was run…

He said, “I just started booking, just started running. I jumped over the … turnstile, hid around the white, tiled foyer entrance to the subway, took my phone out. He jumped over, running away, and I took a photo of him. Then I chased him up the stairs. He started running up 7th Avenue. I took two more photographs of him.”

Bradley continued saying, “I ran down two police officers in an SUV, showed them the photograph and I’m, like, talking to them, and the guy kept saying — it was so interesting — he’s like, ‘Are you stabbed?’ I was like, ‘No, no, no.’ And he goes, ‘No, check to see if you’re stabbed.’”

Luckily, aside from the adrenaline rush that the actor experienced, he was fine.