Dave Portnoy revisited Alex Cooper and Sofia Franklyn‘s acrimonious exit from Barstool Sports, with the media mogul revealing that the former Call Her Daddy co-hosts had a plan to say they were sexually harassed in order to get out of their contracts.
In a new interview with the WSJ Magazine published on Friday, Portnoy discussed his new memoir Cancel Me If You Can which touches on podcasters Cooper and Franklyn, firstly on how they came to join the performatively masculine Barstool empire and then how they ended up exiting in a blaze of gossip and fury.
Call Her Daddy was started by roommates Cooper and Franklyn in October 2018. Following incredible immediate growth, a month later Barstool added the podcast to its lineup of sports focused shows. Despite Call Her Daddy being the polar opposite of the usual Barstool fare, Portnoy says in the interview that Cooper and Franklyn’s pitch struck him as something “different.” “It’s not my cup of tea but I know I haven’t seen it before. Let’s give it a shot,” he added.
The gamble paid off and the female-first advice and comedy podcast became a phenomenon, so much so that Call Her Daddy had seemingly outgrown Barstool, which led to fraught contract negotiations with Cooper and Franklyn in 2020 and an eventual breakup. Portnoy says that Cooper and Franklyn were “willing to step on my neck and burn any bridge to get ahead.”
Portnoy makes the claim in the WSJ interview that Cooper told him that she and Franklyn had a plan to say they were sexually harassed at Barstool to get out of their contracts. For context, Barstool as a company, and Portnoy personally, have consistently been accused of peddling misogyny over the years.
Also in the interview, Portnoy confirms that Cooper and Franklyn “hated each other.” After the duo left Barstool, they engaged in a public battle that saw them go their separate ways. Franklyn would start her own podcast Sofia with an F, and Cooper would continue using the Call Her Daddy brand and establish herself as a media mogul with her company The Unwell Network.
In a 2024 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Cooper discussed her working relationship with Portnoy, the breakup with Franklyn and why she fought so hard to gain the Call Her Daddy IP before leaving Barstool.
“I’m so happy that I trusted myself and fought for this IP [the Call Her Daddy brand and show archive],” said Cooper. “Because I will never forget the day [Barstool founder] Dave Portnoy offered us that IP on a rooftop and I was so elated and being like, “I will stay another year. I’ll do whatever it takes. I want that IP.” Because I had put so much sweat equity into this — marketing, editing, writing, all of it. On [Sofia’s] side, she was like, “I think we could start a show called Girls in the Bathroom, ” or whatever, “and it will be just as good.” And I was like, “That may be true. But in my personal opinion, I’m not giving up this IP. I don’t want to start over.” Thank God I saw the worth of the IP and the trademarks and the catalog. That’s what comes to my mind. The minute I sign a new deal, every time, I text Dave Portnoy a little thank-you.”
Cooper also told THR that Portnoy was in a bind with what to do with Call Her Daddy. “He was in a difficult position. We were making him so much money, and the show had blown up so heavily,” Cooper said. “We wanted to renegotiate because we were making pennies compared to what the show was making for Barstool. I went in there with my partner to ask for more money. If we broke contract, what could the company do? He recognized there was no other way than to appease us and get one more year out of the show.”
On why Portnoy couldn’t just recast Call Her Daddy with new people, Cooper said he couldn’t do it. “When I first signed with Barstool, every single show had emoji characters on their album cover — they were creating IP where they could always put new people into the chairs. But I fought really hard to get our faces on that artwork,” Cooper said.
She added, “I was trying to force their hand so that when you thought of Call Her Daddy, you thought of us. So when he offered the IP along with not much money for one more year, I didn’t give a shit about the money. I was like, “This IP is a gold mine. I’m going to be a multimillionaire and will be set for life if I just stay one year.” I will never judge my ex co-host and former partner for making the decision she did. She really saw the lane of not wanting to work another year for Barstool, and I didn’t, and that’s business.”
