“Call Her Daddy” podcast host Alex Cooper is responding to the claims made by her former boss, Dave Portnoy, in his memoir, Cancel Me If You Can.
Portnoy wrote that refusing to release Cooper from her Barstool Sports contract could have led to harassment accusations against him.
Cooper started “Call Her Daddy” at Barstool Sports alongside Sofia Franklyn in 2018. After the two parted ways, Cooper signed an exclusive Spotify deal in 2021 and continued building the podcast.
Staying out of it
“I have not [responded to the claims before]. I’ve been pregnant,” Cooper said on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Wednesday, August 12. “I’m busy building a child.”
Cooper, who is expecting her first child with husband Matt Kaplan, was pretty careful with her words when asked whether Portnoy’s version of events is accurate.
“I think, whenever I see Dave online, we all enjoy his banter,” she said. “He is a very entertaining person, and I have a very great and complicated relationship with Dave. He gave me my start in this industry, and I will never not be grateful to him.”
In her ‘mother era’
Cooper admitted she hasn’t read Cancel Me If You Can, though she said that from what she’s seen online, she remembers things differently.
“I remember seeing, obviously, [and] getting tagged in those things, and that’s not how I remember it at all,” she said. “I also am like, ‘Dave’s got his version, I got my version, and we’re all good.’”
When asked if she wants to tell her side of the story, Cooper laughed and said, “No.”
“I am in my mother era. I’m no drama right now. We’re here to talk business,” she added.
Talking business
Cooper appeared on CNBC to talk about Unwell Media Network, which she runs with Kaplan. The company was recently valued at $500 million after an investment from Hollywood executive Patrick Whitesell’s firm.
“Matt and I, with Unwell, knew that we wanted to take on investment at some point,” she said.
“Obviously, when we started the company, we put in our own money to start it — and we’ve been profitable since day one. This decision wasn’t about needing [a] cash infusion, it was about wanting to partner with someone who could help us go to the next level with acquisitions and investments,” she claimed.
The future of Unwell
Cooper said she and Whitesell were on the same page about where they want to take the company.
“Unwell is a Gen Z, female-centric media company comprised of dozens of podcasts. We have a film and television studio. We have live events. We have consumer products. We have a charitable foundation. And we have a creative agency,” she continued. “With this flywheel approach we’ve built, we’ve got to the point where we’re profitable, we’re making money and we now want to start looking at acquisitions and investments of … new IPs [and] different talent relationships.”
