In the face of plastic surgery speculation, Bradley Cooper is standing his ground.
The actor, 51, made an appearance on the Smartless podcast this week, where he took the opportunity to address concerns from fans over the allegedly 'altered' appearance he's been sporting recently.
For those out of the loop, tongues were set wagging over Cooper's apparent agelessness when he kicked off the promo tour for his latest release, the comedy-drama Is This Thing On?, last year.
Some social media users claimed at the time to have noticed slightly more prominent, rounded cheekbones in Cooper's case, compared to the other stars taking to the red carpet of a similar age.
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"Bradley Cooper, why?!" one X user questioned. "Guess I haven’t seen a picture of him in a while, because he looks so different and odd to me now. He’s obviously had some work done. Why do celebrities do this?"
Another added: "Have you seen Bradley Cooper lately? That man was the most handsome man ever and now he looks like 82 year old Barry Manilow!"
His peachy complexion and seemingly brighter eyes also sparked discussion online; however, the ceaseless speculation has apparently become too much for Cooper, who was asked about it by podcast hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett this week.
During the 5 January episode, the latter presenter revealed he was recently asked in an interview to name one thing about close friend Cooper that fans might not know, to which Arnett answered: "I said, 'Well, there’s a lot.' And then I was gonna say, because we keep reading everybody thinks that Bradley’s had plastic surgery.
"Everybody keeps saying that. I’m like, 'What people don’t know is that he hasn’t'."
Bateman then chimed in, emphasising that he's not aware of any changes that Cooper has made to his aesthetic, to which the BoJack Horseman star agreed: "Of course, he hasn’t."
Having his own say, the Hangover star then revealed his recent encounters with invasion rumour-mongering, claiming: "No, I get people [coming] up to me the last couple weeks. They're like, 'Oh, you look good!' Yeah. Yeah, but it’s crazy."
Arnett, 55, jumped in again to express how 'mad' it makes him to see his friends' appearances put up for public debate.
"People say that all the time, and it’s a hilarious thing," he continued. "Everybody thinks that they know. You know, you read that bulls**t stuff."
The conversation comes after Cooper's appearance in the 2023 musical hit Maestro, which kicked the rumour mill into a high gear after it emerged that he'd worn a prosthetic nose to portray iconic composer Leonard Bernstein.
In response to backlash over this decision, he told CBS Morning: "The truth is, I’ve done this whole project out of love. And it’s so clear to me where I come from, my nose is very similar to Lenny’s, actually. The prosthetic is actually like a silk sheet."
He added: "It’s all about balance, and, you know, my lips are nothing like Lenny’s, and my chin. And so we had that, and it just didn’t look right.
"We just had to do it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t believe he’s a human being."
Rhianna Benson