Dave Portnoy's Feud With His Ex-Employee Alex Bennett Explained
When Dave Portnoy and Barstool parted ways with Alex Bennett's "Mean Girls" podcast, it was a long time coming. Bennett and co-host Jordyn Woodruff had managed to ruffle plenty of feathers at the company before their departure, which included a few spats with Barstool's "El Presidente." The breaking point appeared to come on September 5, 2023, when Bennett and Woodruff posted a tweet amid a slew of Barstool layoffs that was deemed "tone deaf" by a fellow employee on X, formerly Twitter. "When you show up to work Monday not fired even though all the Stolies wish you were," they wrote in a since-deleted tweet on their "Mean Girls" account. Once the immediate backlash ensued, the podcasters deleted the post — but the damage was done.
The following week, Portnoy announced that the "Mean Girls" podcast would be leaving the Barstool network. Apparently, the Barstool CEO caught wind of Bennett avoiding fellow Barstool employee Kevin Clancy, who asked her and Woodruff to judge an OnlyFans pageant, and Portnoy was unimpressed. "[Bennett's] contract was up, so it was in the midst of whether we were going to renew it," he said on the September 12, 2023 episode of "Barstool Radio." He added, "When I heard that story, it was not what I wanted to hear. I do like Alex a lot," noting that he had no issue with Bennett and Woodruff retaining the "Mean Girls" IP.
Even though Bennett left on fairly amicable terms with Portnoy, the two had publicly feuded on social media in the past.
Dave Portnoy bashes Alex Bennett for complaining
Early on in the "Mean Girls" tenure at Barstool, Dave Portnoy had heated words for Alex Bennett and her co-host Jordyn Woodruff. "Would the mean girls just shut the f**k up already," Portnoy wrote on X on January 26, 2022. He included an expletive-filled video where he lambasted the podcasters for taking issue with a video of theirs being removed from Barstool. "Shut the f*** up. The two of you have been here a combined week and a half. Suddenly you're some historian?" Portnoy said at the beginning of the video. "Hey, f**kin Alex Bennett, I said to you, 'If you really want to keep the video up, keep it up,'" Portnoy said. He continued bashing the "Mean Girls" hosts in a follow-up tweet. "You don't win my loyalty when you're hired. You earn it over time," Portnoy added.
That same day, fans on X noticed that the Barstool President was even more vocal than usual. "[Alex Bennett,] you have any plans for summer yet or just renting space inside [Dave Portnoy's] brain?" one fan tweeted at Bennett. She replied and joked about avoiding the Hamptons, which caught the attention of Portnoy. "Says the billionaire [shush emoji]," he replied. "There he goes agai trying to [shush emoji] me," Bennett responded.
It was not the first time Portnoy had taken shots at Bennett for her "billionaire" status. Prior to joining Barstool, the podcaster married into a wealthy family, and this was a point of contention for Portnoy.
Alex Bennett divorced her billionaire husband
Dave Portnoy took a jab at Alex Bennett in a blog post from August 2021 titled "I Am Now The Second Richest Person At My Own Company," which was a reference to Bennett being married to billionaire Graham Bennett. "And I am now the second richest person at my own company after finding out new hire Alex Bennett owns the Thunder and stole them from Seattle," he wrote. Graham's father, Clay Bennett, is the majority owner of the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder.
Alex married Graham in 2019 before joining the Barstool network, and the couple called it quits in 2023. On an episode of the "Mean Girls" podcast that aired in November 2023, Alex broke down why she and Graham split. Apparently, her husband wanted to move back to Oklahoma City, but she wanted to stay put in New York. "But after we made the decision, our future that once looked so clear looked a little different," she said on the podcast. "We never argued, we weren't fighting, we weren't mad, we weren't yelling," Alex added.
A month after clearing the air about her divorce, Alex and her "Mean Girls" co-host Jordyn Woodruff spoke about their departure from Barstool earlier in the year. The topic came up as they discussed being fired from past jobs. "We weren't fired. We were let go," Woodruff said. "No, we were not renewed," Alex replied, as both women laughed.