Alex Cooper turned "Call Her Daddy" into a podcasting juggernaut, but things haven't also been smooth sailing for the famed interviewer. From childhood struggles to her professional breakup, Cooper has made it through tragedies great and small.
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00:00Alex Cooper turned Call Her Daddy into a podcasting juggernaut, but things haven't
00:04been smooth sailing for the famed interviewer. From childhood struggles to her professional
00:08breakup, Cooper has made it through tragedies great and small.
00:12Alex Cooper is one of the most influential women in the world of podcasting, but she hasn't always
00:17been cheery and confident. In fact, she's been open about how she was the target of bullying
00:21during her childhood. During an appearance on Purpose with Jay Shetty, she admitted,
00:25I was severely bullied for my looks. I was super, super skinny. People made fun of me,
00:30said that I looked like I had an eating disorder. I had awful, awful acne,
00:34to the point where, like, I would beg my parents to let me stay home from school."
00:38When I was younger, if you passed me on a street, you would be like,
00:41oh my God, that girl needs Accutane."
00:43She revealed that this mistreatment sometimes turned physical, adding,
00:47The boys would be like, let's play a game. Her legs are so tiny,
00:50if we trip her, they will snap in half. Cooper added that by the time she was seven,
00:54she hated everything about herself. Reflecting on that feeling, she told Shetty,
00:59I could pinpoint every single thing I hated about myself, and it was almost everything exterior.
01:04Seventh grade Alex, on the way to the seventh grade dance,
01:07would put this on her body, and she knew boys were gonna come over, and no boys came over.
01:11Thankfully, her dad helped her discover her talents by gifting her a camera,
01:15which improved her self-image as she filmed music videos and plays.
01:19Cooper is far from the awkward kid she used to be. By the time she started her freshman year
01:23at Boston University, she had less acne, nicer hair, and no braces. She soon realized that she
01:28was being treated very differently thanks to her new look. One of the boys who had bullied
01:32her ended up attending BU as well, but now he had different motives. Cooper told Jay Shetty,
01:37He was trying to hit on me and giving me all this attention, and it only made me
01:41just feel actually awful because I was like, I'm the same person. I'm the same exact person.
01:46Unfortunately, several of the faculty members that Cooper interacted with
01:50weren't any better. She revealed to Time that one of her male professors made sexist comments
01:54that could in no way be described as constructive criticism. Cooper alleged,
01:58He said,
01:58I just want to be very honest with you. You're not going to be taken seriously in this industry
02:02because of the way you look, so you're actually going to have to work a little bit harder."
02:06All of this led Cooper to start second-guessing her presentation. She continued,
02:10It was the first moment in my life where I was like, should I dye my hair?
02:14Should I wear baggy clothes? Thankfully, Cooper didn't let the comments affect her style.
02:19When Cooper attended college, she proudly followed in her father's footsteps,
02:22becoming a Division I athlete at Boston University. While her dad played hockey,
02:26she played soccer.
02:28It's like sports was my life. My family is a sports family.
02:32Sadly, her time on the team was cut short because of actions outside of her control.
02:36In an interview with The New York Times, Cooper revealed that she endured a traumatic experience
02:41at the hands of her soccer coach. While she hasn't spoken out about the events,
02:44she has referred to inappropriate behavior taking place.
02:47Cooper received a full scholarship to Boston University because of her soccer skills,
02:51but actually had no involvement with the sports team in her senior year. As she put it,
02:55That can kind of indicate where the wrong was done. I got to keep my full scholarship,
02:59but didn't play, because of a situation with the coach. It was a devastating loss for Cooper.
03:03She continued,
03:04I got something I worked my entire life for stripped away because someone in a position
03:08of power couldn't control themselves, and I did nothing wrong.
03:11The podcaster later told Cosmopolitan that she is working through the experience in therapy,
03:16and has since reunited with some of her former teammates who went through the same thing.
03:20Cooper has divulged a lot of information about her romantic relationships over the years,
03:24but she's mostly kept the identities of her former partners under wraps. Her fans, however,
03:29have done some sleuthing and named MLB first baseman Mike Napoli and New Amsterdam actor
03:34Ryan Eggold as likely former flames. But one of Cooper's confirmed exes is baseball pitcher Noah
03:39Sindergaard, or as Cooper prefers to call him on her podcast, Slim Shady. The two were in an
03:43on-off relationship throughout 2017, and it was anything but smooth sailing. As she said on Call
03:48Her Daddy,
03:49We loved walking in a room together. We didn't like how we felt being in a room together.
03:53Cooper went on to detail how their breakup turned into a vengeance match
03:57involving agents and social media, but it seemingly didn't end there.
04:00Three years later, Cooper and Slim Shady gave it another shot,
04:03even though she knew full well that their relationship had been toxic.
04:06It didn't take long before Cooper realized that nothing had really changed,
04:09so she walked away for good. As she recalled,
04:12I had fully grown. I had gotten into therapy. I don't want to be toxic,
04:16and I realized through a few months like he hadn't changed at all. He was the exact same person.
04:21After inking her Spotify deal in 2021, Alex Cooper became the highest-paid female podcaster
04:27in the world. Now a multimillionaire, Cooper lives with her husband Matt Kaplan in a California
04:31mansion valued at $10 million. But less than a decade earlier, Cooper found herself in a
04:36very different financial situation. Having been laid off from her ad sales job, Cooper was trying
04:40to make it as a YouTube vlogger while living in New York City and surviving solely on unemployment
04:45checks. To help pay her rent, Cooper started working for Seeking Arrangements, a service that
04:49facilitated connections with men who would pay to date her. She explained,
04:53The goal was I never wanted to do anything with these men. It was just to go get drinks and
04:56dinner and by the end of the night have enough money for rent.
04:59Although she mostly looks back on it as a funny anecdote of her youth,
05:03Cooper has also cautioned against following in her footsteps. She warned,
05:06In retrospect, I want everyone to be careful. I don't even know if you should be on that site.
05:11Cooper has overcome a lot of the insecurities she had as a result of her childhood bullying,
05:16noting that playing soccer played a big part in helping her feel comfortable with herself.
05:19However, she also admitted that there were still times when her anxiety and insecurities
05:24got the better of her. Seeing photos of herself all over social media didn't help.
05:28It gives me anxiety, I realize, when I don't feel good enough, I don't feel pretty enough,
05:33I don't feel like I'm fitting the body standard, and then I start to spiral.
05:36Cooper opened up about some specific struggles,
05:38revealing that she was caught photoshopping pictures of herself. She admitted,
05:42I felt so good and confident and happy. And then I saw those photos, and I was upset.
05:46I download Facetune, I see the button where it's like realign or something,
05:50and I rearranged my organs. So it gives me that like hourglass shape, and I upload the photo."
05:55After being called out and realizing she was perpetuating harmful stereotypes,
05:59Cooper vowed to never edit another picture she posts on Instagram.
06:03I think every single photo that's edited should have to have a sign somewhere saying,
06:08edited.
06:09Cooper co-created Call Her Daddy in 2018 with her then-roommate and bestie Sophia Franklin.
06:14After producing four episodes of the show, Barstool Sports owner and founder Dave Portnoy
06:19slid into Cooper's DMs, leading to Cooper and Franklin signing a three-year deal to
06:23bring Call Her Daddy under the Barstool umbrella. It gave them $75,000 for the first year,
06:27$85,000 for the second, and $100,000 for the third, although the compensation for their
06:33deal could also be negotiated at the end of each year. After Call Her Daddy blew up in the first
06:37year, the two believed that those numbers should indeed be adjusted. Cooper explained on YouTube
06:42that the duo learned that their salaries were way below industry standards, and they went into
06:46renegotiations asking for $1 million. Although Cooper recalled feeling dubious, she was advised
06:51that negotiations would end with them meeting somewhere in the middle. Portnoy shut them down
06:55immediately, and it took months before they had another sit-down. When he did, he offered them
06:59$500,000 and the intellectual property rights, which Cooper was ready to jump at but Franklin
07:04was not. This led to months of negotiations and instability for Call Her Daddy, leading
07:09Cooper to entertain Portnoy's offer without Franklin, as they had individual contracts.
07:13She signed a new solo deal with Barstool and stayed there until she moved to Spotify in 2021.
07:18Do you miss me at Barstool?
07:20No.
07:20You miss the paycheck?
07:22Yeah, sure. Call Her Daddy made us a lot of money.
07:25Since breaking off her partnership with Franklin, Cooper has admitted that the two didn't really
07:29have a long history together. As their relationship developed from a friendship to a working
07:33partnership, they experienced tension. Cooper noted on YouTube that she consistently worked
07:37more hours on the podcast, as she did the editing and social media. Cooper also said that it was
07:42Franklin who instigated the $1 million negotiations, as Cooper was happy to take the deal for half that
07:47was on the table. Cooper went along with the negotiations to support her partner,
07:51as she later revealed,
07:53I wanted Call Her Daddy to remain a duo. I wanted Sophia to stay at Barstool with me.
07:59Unfortunately, things soon got out of hand, with the two barely speaking and unable to agree on
08:04how to move forward. Cooper continued,
08:06It just got really bad because it got all about money.
08:08As Franklin continued to ask for more from Barstool during negotiations,
08:12Cooper made it clear that she was happy to take the original offer because the IP was
08:16the most valuable thing to her. Eventually, Cooper moved forward without Franklin,
08:20and built the successful Call Her Daddy brand that she has now. Cooper and Franklin,
08:24who launched her own podcast, Sophia with an F, do not seem to be in contact.
08:28I don't see a reconciling, just in terms of, like,
08:32BFFs, but there's no bad blood on my end and, like, I wish her the best.
08:36Considering the popularity of Call Her Daddy and the controversy that surrounded it,
08:40it's no surprise that Alex Cooper has dealt with her fair share of hate comments. In her opinion,
08:45most of the hate she receives has to do with sexist double standards. She explained,
08:49The concept of, like, oh, she's b-----, like, oh, she f----- someone over to get here.
08:53Yes, I'm so competitive, but a man has never been called too competitive.
08:57It's like the go-getter. Oh, he knows what he wants. I think for men,
09:00it's never deemed b----- or catfishy. So I think for me,
09:03my best friends would tell you I'm a great f----- friend, and I'm a loyal person.
09:07Cooper has also called out sexist comparisons to men in the industry,
09:10like the frequent refrain that she's the female Joe Rogan. Although she has built
09:14a multi-million dollar brand through her podcast, which now encompasses a wide range of topics,
09:18she often gets trolled for where her career started. Cooper elaborated,
09:22There were all these young, horny boys that were like,
09:24she's successful because she talks about sucking b----. It was frustrating to see men trying to
09:28discredit the brilliant product that had been created, and millions of people are consuming.