Gigi Hadid reveals she and Bradley Cooper met at a kid's birthday party, says he's 'very romantic'

Gigi Hadid has opened up about her boyfriend Bradley Cooper for the first time, calling their relationship "very romantic and happy."

In an interview with Vogue published on Tuesday, we learned a few things about Hadid and Cooper's romance. The 29-year-old model calls him "Bradley." They've been dating for more than a year. The superstars met in a very normal way: through a mutual friend at a kid's backyard birthday party.

"I think just getting to the point where knowing what you want and deserve in a relationship is essential," Hadid said. "Then to find someone that is in a place in their life where they know what they want and deserve … and you both do work separately to come together and be the best partner that you can be. I just feel really lucky."

Hadid and Cooper are both parents. She shares a 4-year-old daughter, Khai, with her ex-boyfriend, Zayn Malik. Cooper is the father of a daughter, Lea, who turns 8 later this month and whose mother is the model Irina Shayk. Hadid told the magazine she doesn't think her relationship with the 50-year-old Oscar-nominated actor would have happened earlier in her life.

"I respect him so much as a creative," she said, "and I feel that he gives so much to me: encouragement and, just, belief. For those people you admire to encourage you, it can create so much belief in yourself. Like, what’s the worst thing if I auditioned for this? You jump and take the leap."

Cooper and Hadid don't hide their relationship — they've had date nights aplenty with Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce — but she said there are aspects of their life that she doesn't want "to share for whatever reason." The irony isn't lost on her that they met in such a traditional setting.

"You want to give yourself a normal experience of dating," Hadid explained, "and even for my friends who aren't public figures, that’s hard. Where do you go? And, what? You just start talking to people? And then there’s another added layer of privacy and security. You want to believe that people are going to have your back and not call TMZ or go on Deuxmoi or whatever, but you just don’t know.”

As for the stories that end up in the press through unnamed "sources," Hadid said the information that gets out there is "kind of right and kind of wrong." However, she says she tries to "let it go; you can’t always correct everything."

That goes, too, for her feelings toward her ex. Although her six-year romance with Malik came to a tumultuous end, she described their co-parenting partnership as one of "love, and a feeling of camaraderie."

"There is the hard part of the world knowing this much, and thinking they know everything," she said, perhaps alluding to the 2021 incident between the singer and her mother, Yolanda Hadid. "And at the end of the day, we're not interested in giving everyone our whole story. What we are interested in is raising our daughter together, with so much respect for each other, and not just as co-­parents, but what we’ve been through together."