Before she became the go-to interviewer of celebrity big names such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Victoria Beckham and Kamala Harris, the bleach-blonde host of the Call Her Daddy podcast Alex Cooper was serving up X-rated dating advice to thousands of college-aged girls.
Today, the 31-year-old entrepreneur helms a burgeoning media empire – with her own production company, an in-house advertising agency that already boasts a multi-year partnership with Google, a line of hydration drinks and a three-year podcasting deal with SiriusXM worth a reported $125million.
But Cooper’s transformation into the ‘most successful woman in podcasting’ was not always a solo effort – nor did it come easy.
Now, multiple sources exclusively tell the Daily Mail how Cooper’s unbridled success has been aided by both her well-connected husband and a rarely seen Call Her Daddy producer.
Alex Cooper, 31, is the co-founder of the Call Her Daddy podcast, which launched in 2018. The media mogul has since transformed the sex-positive podcast into a media empire
Laren McMullen, Cooper’s childhood best friend of 25 years, was a graduate student at Columbia University with an undergraduate degree in neuroscience when she began working on the side for Call Her Daddy in 2020.
Appearing on the podcast last July, McMullen outed herself, telling how she started out with booking and researching guests, writing interview questions for Cooper and scheduling recording sessions behind the scenes.
Clearly, she was good at her job.
For while McMullen had dreamed of becoming a licensed therapist, one glance at the full-time salary Cooper was offering her made her ‘fall out of the chair’ and abandon her aspirations entirely.
While a source now tells the Daily Mail that the pair are ‘grateful the secret is out’ and to no longer be ‘hiding anything,’ Cooper seemed to suggest on the episode with McMullen that she feared a repeat of history.
Indeed, Call Her Daddy likely would have been nothing without its other founding father: Sofia Franklyn.
Once the best of friends, Cooper and Franklyn, 33, were roommates turned co-hosts, who decided to try their hand at recording together in their New York City apartment.
In July, Cooper revealed in an episode that her childhood best friend, Laren McMullen (left), had been producing Call Her Daddy for the last four years
Call Her Daddy originally launched in 2018 with co-hosts Cooper and Sofia Franklyn (pictured)
In 2018, the pair recorded the very first episode of Call Her Daddy, titled ‘Sext Me So I Know It’s Real.’
In the installments that followed, they swapped explicit stories about their dating lives, graphic tips for how to improve sexual performance, and something Cooper famously referred to as the ‘Gluck Gluck 9000.’
In just two months, Call Her Daddy went from 12,000 downloads to two million.
The podcast, branded as ‘female locker-room talk,’ soon caught the attention of Dave Portnoy, founder of media company Barstool Sports, who offered Cooper and Franklyn a three-year contract, with reported salaries of $70,000.
But their newfound success as a duo would be short lived.
Things took a turn in 2020, when both women wanted to renegotiate their contracts to better reflect the continued growth of their podcast: they wanted a reported $1million each.
But, according to Portnoy – who publicly slammed Cooper and Franklyn as ‘greedy’ – Barstool could only offer them a new contract of $500,000-a-year in addition to bonuses.
He claimed that Cooper relented and agreed but Franklyn, who still wanted more money, was not.
So, Cooper decided to independently strike a deal with Portnoy – without the show’s other half.
‘Sofia did not take the deal, and when it got held up and there were no more points coming from her side, we had to move forward without her,’ Cooper told listeners during her first solo Call Her Daddy episode in 2020, titled ‘The Funeral.’
Call Her Daddy was initially marketed as ‘female locker-room talk,’ in which Cooper and Franklyn shared X-rated details about their sex and dating lives
In just two months, Call Her Daddy went from 12,000 downloads to two million. They caught the attention of Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, and signed a podcast deal with the media company
Franklyn, for her part, seemed blindsided. In a statement posted on Instagram, she said she felt ‘betrayed’ by Cooper who ‘had gone behind [her] back.’
‘Everything that we had been working toward and planning for the last half a year to year was all of a sudden not the plan anymore and [Cooper thought] we needed to just stay with this company and do what [Portnoy] was saying,’ Franklyn told Rolling Stone in 2023.
‘I found out later [Cooper and Portnoy] 1,000% had this relationship that I wasn’t aware of and not a part of. I thought [Cooper was my] best friend, sister, and we are not hiding anything. There’s no way in hell I would speak to our boss without you, that would be f*****g crazy, and I don’t think that went both ways.’
For her part, Cooper claimed she had long carried out most of the work involved in the podcast, and that Franklyn’s then-boyfriend, HBO Sports executive Peter Nelson, had been ‘controlling’ and exploited Call Her Daddy for his own gain.
According to Rolling Stone, Cooper and Portnoy said at the time that Nelson was attempting to secure a more lucrative deal with Wondery podcasting firm.
Franklyn later said that her now ex ‘wasn’t that involved’ in the podcast deal.
The public fallout between the two best friends, however, divided loyal Call Her Daddy listeners, with some flocking to Franklyn’s new show, Sofia with an F.
Yet Cooper undeniably came out on top – with the split allowing her to take full creative control of the Call Her Daddy brand and expand the increasingly lucrative empire.
Amid contract negotiations with Barstool, Cooper accused Franklyn’s then-boyfriend Peter Nelson of being ‘controlling’ and exploiting Call Her Daddy for his own gain
In 2021, after the deal with Barstool expired, she signed a three-year contract with Spotify worth a reported $60million. That was followed by another three-year deal in August 2024 with SiriusXM, which was worth an estimated $125 million.
‘There are people at SiriusXM that don’t love her, but it doesn’t matter. She’s somebody’s cup of tea,’ a second source told the Daily Mail.
‘Even if you don’t like her, you’re kind of stuck seeing her – ads on social media – or reading articles about someone she interviewed.’
As Cooper relocated to Los Angeles and took on the role of Call Her Daddy’s sole creative director, she sparked up a relationship with Hollywood film producer Matt Kaplan – initially introduced to listeners as ‘Mr. Sexy Zoom Man.’
But Kaplan, now her husband, had his own impressive resume, being the producer behind the hit Netflix film franchise To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and its spin-off XO, Kitty. He was previously the president of Awesomeness Films entertainment company, and currently serves as the CEO of Ace Entertainment.
The ‘power couple’ – as dubbed by our first insider – quickly combined their business expertise. In 2023, they launched Trending, a media company targeted on Gen Z which would serve as the new parent company of Call Her Daddy.
Under Trending, Cooper launched the Unwell Network – a production shingle with internet personalities Alix Earle and Madeline Argy already signed on as podcast hosts.
Cooper met Hollywood film producer Matt Kaplan in 2020. They were engaged in March 2023 and married in April 2024 (seen in May 2023)
Cooper has often faced criticism for her podcasting style
Their latest media venture, reported by the Wall Street Journal in early October, is the Unwell Creative Agency – which serves as a ‘conduit for brands to reach Gen Z women’ through marketing campaigns, live events, and Unwell’s podcast network.
‘Their plans are just to continue to grow and grow the Call Her Daddy brand,’ the first insider said, adding that Kaplan continues to be involved with ‘business decisions’ for the Unwell Network ‘behind the scenes.’
‘They want to become the number one podcast and be known for having the best of the best interviews.’
But in a highly saturated industry, delivering the ‘best of the best interviews’ may be easier said than done – especially as critics have questioned Cooper’s interviewing prowess.
On social media, some Call Her Daddy listeners have branded Cooper’s interviewing style as ‘horrible,’ while others have criticized her PR-friendly questions that they say often sound scripted.
Cooper, however, has said she ‘never f*****g claimed to be a journalist’ in the first place.
‘I have a podcast, and I happen to ask questions that go a little hard hitting sometimes — and they sometimes go on the news,’ she said in April.
In August 2024, Cooper signed a three-year deal with SiriusXM worth $125 million
But her congenial demeanor with A-listers in the hot seat is, according to our second insider, part of Call Her Daddy’s success.
‘If Alex were to become this hard-a** interviewer, then she might deplete the people coming in, which is opposite of what she’s known for,’ they said.
‘At the end of the day, Alex is probably thinking what most podcasters are thinking – ‘Do I want to be just controversial or do I want maybe have a great interview and maybe get something else out of them?’
But her supposed lack of interviewing savvy has also led critics to scrutinize her rise to fame, as skeptics accuse her of being a ‘nepo baby’ using her parents’ network to advance her career.
Hailing from Newtown, Pennsylvania, Cooper’s mother worked as a school therapist while her father was a broadcast producer for the National Hockey League, which she credited for sparking her interest in both sports and media.
But it wasn’t until the Boston University graduate – with a degree in film and television – fell on tough times that the idea for Call Her Daddy was born. Cooper had lost her NYC ad-sales job and was living on unemployment checks and quick cash from sugar daddies met on Seeking Arrangements just to get by.
‘Alex is not a nepo baby where everything has been handed to her,’ the second source said.
‘But the fact is, when you become the biggest woman ever in podcasting, those doors swing open. So yeah, she’s going to be spoiled and she’s going to get opportunities that other people aren’t going to get.’
In just seven years, Call Her Daddy has grown from the confines of Cooper’s New York City apartment into a multimillion-dollar empire.
So what could she do in the next seven?
Our first insider said: ‘Their plans are to continue to grow and grow the Call Her Daddy brand.’
The Daily Mail has contacted representatives for Cooper for comment.
