advice

Can You Make Sense of Bradley Cooper’s Pre-Oscars Advice?

Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga at the Oscars.
Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga at the Oscars. Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga have spent the past few months on a truly iconic press tour for their film, A Star is Born. On Sunday night, months of complimenting each other culminated in a steamy performance of “Shallow” at the Oscars — and the era of the duo sharing insight into their artistic relationship officially came to a close. Or did it?

After winning the Oscar for Best Original Song for “Shallow” on Sunday night, Lady Gaga participated in a typical post-award press conference backstage at the Academy Awards. There, Lady Gaga revealed the advice that Cooper gave the music superstar before their performance, per People:

“’One of the hardest things in life is to be brave enough to be yourself. I wish to everyone that is going to that celebration to feel a joy inside of them.’ That’s actually what Bradley said to me yesterday, right before we did our last rehearsal for this performance of ‘Shallow.’ He said, ‘Let’s just drop a little bit of joy.’ And I said, ‘Okay.’ And turns out, joy did a whole lot for me.”

“Let’s just drop a little bit of joy.” Hmmm. What could that possibly mean?

Cooper has previously given Gaga some useful advice — he once told Gaga (per the Los Angeles Times) to take off her makeup to showcase her natural beauty, and Gaga has also spoken out about how Cooper taught her to never give up — but this latest guidance is throwing us for a loop. What was Cooper trying to tell Gaga, a veteran performer, with this? And how exactly can you drop joy into anything if you are not on a ledge and parachuting in?

Excuse us while we go ask 100 people in a room to interpret this …

Can You Make Sense of Bradley Cooper’s Pre-Oscars Advice?