Dax Shepard credits Bradley Cooper for life-changing dating advice

Bradley Cooper salvaged Dax Shepard from a suffocating relationship with his words of wisdom.

According to People, during an onstage conversation over the weekend at the annual New Yorker Festival in New York City, the CHiPs star looked back at the relationship advice Cooper, 49, gave him before Shepard, 49, married his now-wife, Kristen Bell.

He recalled some advice the Maestro star gave him years ago after the event host asked him, "What would you say to the male audience that is scared or not sure how to be vulnerable in a relationship like you are with your wife?"

Reflecting on his past, Shepard recounted when he was in a turbulent relationship with someone who, as he put it, "had a lot more status and money and everything, and we would get in these fights," feeling him "less than her or insecure."

Cooper simply advised him, "You’re clearly breaking up with this gal. Why don’t you practice on her? Tell her, 'When you said this, I felt this way.'"

Taking Cooper’s words to heart, Shepard bravely laid bare his feelings before ending the relationship, only to be met with an unexpected reaction.

"The reaction was, first of all, shock — like, 'There's a man saying he feels really insecure and little and less than and insignificant." After a brief period of reconciliation, the inevitable conflicts resumed.

Ultimately, Shepard credited Bell as "the beneficiary of that trial relationship," which taught him the importance of vulnerability.