Bradley Cooper rules the roost | Lisa Scottoline

Bradley Cooper is henpecked.

I know, it's horrifying.

I'm not talking about the real Bradley Cooper, the handsome, brilliant, hunky actor who deserves every Academy Award in the book.

(And also me.)

I'm talking about my rooster, Bradley Chicken Cooper.

I'm here to report that there's trouble at home.

Rather, in the coop(er).

We begin with a reminder that I have 15 young hens, and one rooster.

I ordered 16 young hens, but somebody made a mistake.

Chickens are notoriously hard to sex.

It’s not easy to spread those little yellow legs.

Sorry, that was crude.

But hopefully funny.

In any event, I ended up with a single rooster, and I named him Bradley Cooper.

Who is very single.

In the beginning, he was the dating all the hens.

If you know what I mean.

In fact, he was speed-dating.

I can't say these were meaningful relationships.

They were, however, longer than both of my marriages.

Bradley Cooper was The Bachelor.

It wasn't a chicken coop, it was a fantasy suite.

The hens were crazy for him, and who can blame them?

After all, he’s Bradley Cooper, and they’re not blind. He’s extremely handsome, white with a very nice red comb, black feathers around his neck, and a big fan of black tail feathers.

And, of course, hens have needs, too.

Maybe not this hen, who has a full-time job, plus Netflix.

But other hens.

Hens with estrogen.

In the beginning, everything was great in Bradley Cooper's life, and he ruled the roost.

Literally.

By the way, this where you learn that all the terms you hear about that are chicken-related are also reality-based. For example, there really is a pecking order, which establishes the power dynamic in the chicken coop and lets everybody know who’s boss. The more powerful hens really do peck the others, and it takes a few weeks for it to shake out, but in the end, the pecking order gets established.

Bradley Cooper, being male, was born at the top of the pecking order, and early on, the hens were fine with that.

Even though he was commitment-phobic.

To be fair to the hens, let's point out that Bradley Cooper didn't have any competition.

There were no other roosters on the app.

In fact, he was the app.

But then things changed, and the hens got woke.

Their consciousness got raised, and girl power got out of hand.

I don't know for sure what happened, but I suspect they started listening to Lady Gaga.

And they flipped the power dynamic.

One after another, the hens started rejecting Bradley Cooper, especially if he didn't buy them dinner first.

And when he didn't get the message, they started pecking at him.

At first it was light pecking, and it cost him a few tail feathers.

But then they started ganging up on him and pecking him when he wasn’t even bothering them.

And he was cowering in the corner, with no tail feathers.

We had to put him in protective custody, and his tail feathers are only now growing back.

These days, the girls rule the roost.

And Bradley Cooper is henpecked.

Who knew it was a real thing?

But it's all about who's the best.

It's hard to avoid the analogy, given that this is the Sunday of the Academy Awards.

I loved the movie A Star Is Born, which was nominated for best picture. The real Bradley Cooper not only starred in the film, for which he was nominated for best actor, but he also wrote it, for which he was nominated for best adapted screenplay. His amazing costar Lady Gaga was nominated for best actress, and the great Sam Elliott was nominated for best actor in a supporting Role.

Astoundingly, the real Bradley Cooper was not nominated for best director, and we all know why.

Because the other roosters are jealous of him.

And, incredibly, maybe even a few of the hens.

Whoever voted in the Hollywood pecking order doesn't want the real Bradley Cooper at the top.

Because it makes no logical sense that a movie could be nominated for best picture, that every major star could be nominated for best actor, that its script be nominated for best screenplay — and the director still doesn’t get any credit.

Plus, he sang and played guitar in the movie while being insanely hot.

I think the members of the academy are even more petty than my hens.

They don’t deserve their tail feathers.

The real Bradley Cooper deserves to be best director.

In my opinion, he rules the roost.

When the Academy Awards are on TV, I'm going to be rooting for everybody in the movie, especially him, to win every Oscar.

And I will be watching with Flat Bradley Cooper, my life-size cardboard cutout of you-know-who, already dressed in a cardboard tuxedo for the occasion.

It's going to be a great night.

I know who’s going to win.

Me.

Look for Lisa and Francesca’s humor collection, “I See Life Through Rosé-Colored Glasses,” and Lisa’s number-one best-selling thriller, “After Anna,” and her Rosato & DiNunzio novel, “Feared,” in stores now. Also look for Lisa’s new novel, “Someone Knows,” coming April 9. lisa@scottoline.com.