Giving love advice comes easy to Barbara “Cutie” Cooper. The 96-year-old, who dishes advice about love on her blog, Twitter and other online platforms, says she simply has to reach into her 73 years of marriage to give guidance.
And she thinks she knows why she has developed such a loyal following.
“The public is very smart. They know a good thing when they see it,” she told TODAY.
Cutie now shares her wisdom in a book that has worked its way up Amazon.com’s bestseller list, but the Los Angeles resident first climbed to Internet fame when she and her husband, Harry “Pop Pop” Cooper, shared their relationship insights on the blog, The OGs, which stands for The Original Grandparents.
A mother's love gets son's book published after his death
With help from their granddaughters, Cutie and Pop Pop posted videos, shared stories about their adventures, and doled out advice to the lovelorn about how to have a happy relationship.
“It’s a give-and-take situation,” Pop Pop said in one video post. “I give and she takes!”
When Pop Pop died in 2010, Cutie decided to continue sharing advice on how to keep a marriage intact.
The resulting book, “Fall in Love for Life: Inspiration from a 73-Year Marriage,” was published in January by Chronicle Books and co-written by her granddaughters, Kim and Chinta Cooper.
A grieving mom's advice to the rest of us: Love purely, and take it easy
Earlier this month, the book cracked the Top 100 list on Amazon.com after receiving mentions in Redbook magazine and on Yahoo!Shine.
“We spent the day refreshing the Amazon home page and watching it climb up the charts,” Kim Cooper told NBC News. “It’s a thrill. It’s like having a hit record.”
In the book, Cutie lays out advice that helped guide her through seven decades of marriage.
"If you wish to stay connected and happy in your marriage, my advice to you is to never be too tired or too busy to feel love for your partner," Cutie writes.
"When your life is nearly over, you will regret it if you look back and recall too many nights when you made excuses instead of making love."