Tragic Details About Alex Cooper
If you're a podcast fan, you'll know the name Alexandra "Alex" Cooper — or at least the name of her popular show, "Call Her Daddy." The Pennsylvania native started the podcast back in 2018 with her then-best friend and roommate, Sofia Franklyn. What began as two women giving big sister-style advice on sex and relationships has since morphed into one of the most popular podcasts in the world, with Cooper captaining the ship solo. Now, she's known for having candid conversations with celebs like Christina Aguilera, Miley Cyrus, and Cole Sprouse on topics such as mental health, careers, and relationships.
With the new format of Cooper's podcast appealing to a wider audience than before, she was quickly snapped up by Spotify for an exclusive multi-year deal. In 2021, she inked a three-year contract with the audio streaming platform for $60 million. The deal allowed Cooper to retain creative control and carved out space for "Call Her Daddy" to become one of the most successful podcasts of all time.
Cooper has her eye on the prize at all times. "I want to be the biggest podcast in the world. I've got this great big deal now. I want to prove to the world that I am worth this," she proclaimed to Time in 2021. But, while the podcast host clearly loves what she does, her journey to the top hasn't been easy. From childhood struggles to navigating a male-dominated industry and sexist comments, she's had to deal with a lot. Keep reading for tragic details you didn't know about Alex Cooper.
Alex Cooper was bullied when she was young
Blonde beauty Alex Cooper is undeniably a modern-day "it girl." The internet goes wild the moment she drops a skincare or beauty recommendation, and fans adore her style. But the podcaster said that hasn't always been the case, revealing that she wasn't particularly popular or confident growing up. In fact, she was bullied from a young age.
"I was severely bullied for my looks. I was super, super skinny. People made fun of me, said that I looked like I had an eating disorder. I had awful, awful acne to the point where, like, I would beg my parents to let me stay home from school," Cooper said during an episode of Jay Shetty's podcast "On Purpose." she revealed. She continued, explaining that this cruel treatment by her school peers turned physical. "The boys would be like 'let's play a game, her legs are so tiny, if we trip her they will snap in half,'" she explained.
Cooper added that by the time she was seven, she hated everything about herself. Reflecting on that feeling, she told Shetty: "I could pinpoint every single thing I hated about myself and it was almost everything exterior wise."
Cooper didn't want to open up to her family about what was going on. However, her dad (perhaps unknowingly) helped her by giving her a camera, which she used to film music videos and plays, essentially preparing her for her future career.
Boys treated her differently after she had a glow up
Alex Cooper told Jay Shetty that the cruel bullying she experienced as a child and teenager knocked her confidence well into adulthood. But, as she grew up, this internal struggle and hatred of her appearance wasn't reflected on the outside, as she had a major glow up.
Cooper recalled "On Purpose" that one of the boys who bullied her in middle school ended up attending the same college as her. However, he treated her completely differently after seeing the changes in her appearance, which she said consisted of her getting rid of her braces, dying her hair, and getting a prescription to combat her acne. "He was trying to hit on me and giving me all this attention, and it only made me just feel actually awful because I was like, 'I'm the same person, I'm the same exact person,'" Cooper explained, noting that nothing about her core values ever changed and it was obvious he only cared about her physical attributes. Safe to say, Cooper didn't pander to his attention but does credit him and all the other bullies for helping shape who she is today.
Alex Cooper suffered a traumatic experience at the hands of her soccer coach
When Alex Cooper attended college, she proudly followed in her dad's footsteps, becoming a Division I athlete at Boston University. But, while her dad played hockey, she played soccer, which remains one of her major passions to this day. However, her time on the team was cut short because of actions out of her control. In an interview with The New York Times, Cooper revealed that she endured a "traumatic experience" at the hands of her soccer coach. While she hasn't spoken out about the events, she has referred to "inappropriate behavior" taking place.
Cooper had received a full scholarship to Boston University because of her soccer skills, but actually had no involvement with the sports team in her senior year. She said: "That can kind of indicate where the wrong was done. I got to keep my full scholarship but didn't play because of a situation with the coach." It was a devastating and unfair loss for Cooper. "I got something I worked my entire life for stripped away because someone in a position of power couldn't control themself. And I did nothing wrong," she explained.
The podcaster later told Cosmopolitan that she is working through the experience in therapy, and has since reunited with some of her former teammates who also experienced the inappropriate behavior.
Her toxic relationship with Noah Syndergaard
Alex Cooper has divulged a lot about her romantic relationships over the years. Although she has shielded the identities of most of her former partners, the Daddy Gang has done some sleuthing and believe her former flames include Boston Red Sox player Mike Napoli and "New Amsterdam" actor Ryan Eggold. One of her exes we know about for sure is baseball player Noah Syndergaard, as the pair made several public appearances during their time together, although she refers to him as Slim Shady on her podcast.
Cooper and Syndergaard were in an on-off relationship throughout 2017, and it was anything but smooth sailing. While their romance may have seemed glamorous, it was certainly turbulent. "We loved walking in a room together. We didn't like how we felt being in a room together ... That's some dark f***ing s***," she revealed on the "I Have a Boyfriend" episode of "Call Her Daddy." Cooper went on to detail how their breakup turned into a vengeance match involving agents and X, formerly known as Twitter, but it seemingly didn't end there.
Three years later, Cooper and Slim Shady gave it another shot, despite their relationship having been "toxic." It didn't take long before Cooper realized that nothing had really changed, though, and she walked away for good. She said: "I had fully grown. I had gotten into therapy ... I don't want to be toxic and I realized through a few months, like he hadn't changed at all. He was the exact same person."
Her university professor told her she would never be taken seriously because of her appearance
Alex Cooper was sadly exposed to a series of inappropriate and sexist behavior while studying at Boston University. The college should have been a safe space for her to grow and develop, but along with the trauma she endured at the hands of her soccer coach, she was also undue misogyny from one of her professors.
Cooper, who was a Film and Television major, revealed to Time that one of her male professors made sexist comments that could in no way be described as constructive criticism. "He said, 'I just want to be very honest with you: You're not going to be taken seriously in this industry because of the way you look. So you're actually going to have to work a little bit harder,'" she recalled. "It was the first moment in my life where I was like, Should I dye my hair? Should I wear baggy clothes?" Cooper added.
It certainly shows strength of character that Cooper didn't let this comment deter her from her goals, but it's tragic she had to deal with it in the first place.
She was totally broke before starting Call Her Daddy
After inking her Spotify deal in 2021, Alex Cooper became the highest-paid female podcaster in the world. Now a multi-millionaire, Cooper and her fiancé, Matt Kaplan, live in a chic California mansion valued at $10 million. However, less than a decade ago, Cooper found herself in a very different financial situation.
Having been laid off from her ad sales job, Cooper was trying to make it as a YouTube vlogger while living in New York City with no income and surviving solely on unemployment checks. To help pay her rent, Cooper started working for Seeking Arrangements, a service that facilitated connections with men who would pay to date her. "The goal was I never wanted to do anything with these men, it was just to go get drinks and dinner, and by the end of the night have enough money for rent," Cooper explained on an episode of "Call Her Daddy" (via Time).
Although she mostly looks back on it as a funny anecdote of her youth, Cooper has also cautioned against following in her footsteps. "In retrospect, I want everyone to be careful. I don't even know if you should be on that site." Her comments imply that the company setup wasn't super safe and that it didn't take precautions to protect its workers, as she added that she always had to bring a friend with her to keep an eye from a watchful distance in case the situation ever took a turn.
She often feels anxious about her body image and says social media plays its part
Alex Cooper told Jay Shetty that she has been working on her sense of confidence in therapy and has overcome a lot of the insecurities she had as a result of her childhood bullying, noting that playing soccer was a big part of that over the years. However, she also admitted that there were still times when her anxiety and insecurities got the better of her. Cooper said this is often exacerbated by the images she was seeing around her on social media. "It gives me anxiety, I realize, when I don't feel good enough, I don't feel pretty enough, I don't feel like I'm fitting the body standard and then I start to spiral," she admitted (via Yahoo! Life).
Cooper also opened up about how social media fed her insecurities on her own podcast, revealing that she was caught photoshopping pictures of herself after seeing pictures of herself on a night out to celebrate her birthday. "I felt so good and confident and happy. And then I saw those photos, and I was upset," she admitted. "I download Facetune, I see the button where it's like realign or something, [and] I rearranged my organs. So it gives me that, like, hourglass shape and I upload the photo." After being called out and realizing she was perpetuating harmful stereotypes, Cooper vowed never to edit another picture she posts on Instagram.
The controversy with Barstool
Alex Cooper co-created "Call Her Daddy" in 2018 with the then-roommate and bestie Sofia Franklyn. After producing four episodes of the show, Barstool Sports owner and founder Dave Portnoy slid into Cooper's DM's, leading to Cooper and Franklyn signing a deal to bring "Call Her Daddy" in under the Barstool umbrella. They signed a three-year deal, giving them $75,000 for the first year, $85,000 for the second, and $100,000 for the third, although the compensation for their deal could also be negotiated at the end of each year.
After "Call Her Daddy" blew up in their first year, this is what they decided to do. Cooper explained on YouTube that the duo was hearing from multiple people that their salaries were way below industry standards, and they went into renegotiations with a new term sheet asking for $1 million. Although Cooper recalls feeling dubious, she was advised that negotiations would end with them meeting somewhere in the middle.
However, Portnoy, who owned the rights (Intellectual Property) for "Call Her Daddy" at the time, shut them down immediately, and it took months before they had another sit-down. When he did, he offered them $500,000 and the IP, which Cooper was ready to jump at, but Franklyn was not. This led to months of negotiations and instability for "Call Her Daddy" — which was still Cooper's priority — leading her to entertain Portnoy's offer without Franklyn as they had individual contracts. She signed a new solo deal with Barstool and stayed there until she moved to Spotify in 2021.
She feuded with her best friend and business partner
Since breaking off her partnership with Sofia Franklyn, Alex Cooper has admitted to E! that while the pair may have become very close friends before they began recording "Call Her Daddy," they didn't really have a long history together. As their relationship developed from solely a friendship to a working relationship, they experienced tension. Cooper noted on YouTube that she consistently worked more hours on the podcast as she did all the editing and social media, for which she received extra compensation.
Cooper also said that it was Franklyn who instigated the $1 million negotiations, as Cooper was happy to take the $500,000 deal that was on the table. Cooper went along with the negotiations to support her partner. "I wanted Call Her Daddy to remain a duo. I wanted Sofia to stay at Barstool with me ... [I] wanted to do it 50/50," she said. But eventually it got out of hand. The pair were barely speaking and couldn't agree on how to move forward. "It just got really bad because it got all about money," Cooper recalled.
As Franklyn continued to ask for more from Barstool during negotiations, Cooper made it clear that she was happy to take the original offer because the IP was the most valuable thing to her. Eventually, Cooper moved forward with Barstool without Franklyn and built the successful "Call Her Daddy" brand she has now. Cooper and Franklyn, who launched her own podcast "Sofia with an F," do not seem to be in contact.
She's had to deal with a lot of sexist comments
Celebrities and public figures come under fire for a lot of things as they live their lives in the public eye and under the scrutiny of the press. Alex Cooper has endured the major controversy with Barstool Sports and the split with her former best friend and business partner Sofia Franklyn. Although she came out the other side and is thriving, she's had to deal with a lot of hate comments.
Reflecting on that time and her subsequent success in an interview with E!, she addressed some of the sexist comments. "The concept of like, 'Oh she's bitchy.' Like, 'Oh, she f***ed someone over to get here.' ... Yes, I'm so competitive, but a man has never been called too competitive. It's like 'the go-getter,' 'Oh, he knows what he wants,' ... I think for men, it's never deemed bitchy or catfish-y, so I think for me, my best friends would tell you I'm a great f***ing friend and I'm a loyal person," she said. Cooper has also called out sexist comparisons to men in the industry, such as being called "the female Joe Rogan," because they put qualifiers on her success, per "On Purpose."
And, although Cooper has built a multi-million-dollar brand through her podcast, which now encompasses a wide range of topics, she often gets trolled for where her career started. "[They say] 'she's successful because she talks about sucking d***.' It was frustrating to see men trying to discredit the brilliant product that had been created and millions of people are consuming," Cooper told E!