Alex Cooper; 'The Founding Father' of A New Era For Women Who Love Media
A deep dive into the #1 voice heard by women round the world ft. internalised misogny and reflections on ambition.
It’s a handful of days, before the Unwell Tour in 2023. Alex Cooper is preparing to debut a live show that reimagines how her devoted audience, nicknamed “The Daddy Gang” might interact with her, and the podcast juggernaut that is Call Her Daddy. It’s a show that has earned Cooper landmark podcasting deals, some of the biggest interviews in the world and a rare spot as both a curator/creator of pop culture and a subject of the rapidly moving cycle itself. What other podcasters do you know who have two-part documentaries on Hulu/Disney +? For all his popularity, no one’s following Joe Rogan around with a camera.
Alex has a vision. This is going to be a theatrical spectacular, complete with dancers, choreography, jokes, anecdotes, and the kind of intimate stories I can’t imagine telling a group of 50 people, let alone 5,000. But things aren’t going according to plan. The crew, tasked with bringing this thing to life haven’t managed to pull off a full-firing all tech working rehearsal yet and Alex is understandably stressed. She’s taking a big leap with this, and as I come to learn, Alexandra Cooper doesn’t ever settle for anything but sticking the landing.
She’s backstage with her team, venting and workshopping solutions. They’re encouraging her to advocate for herself, be firm about her needs, and to communicate openly and directly with the crew, most of whom it should be noted, appear to be male. But Alex isn’t sure, running her hands over her face and saying in an exhausted voice, “I can’t do that. Do you know what they’ll say if I do that? Oh that Alex Cooper? Yeah, she’s a bitch to work with… Matt (here she indicates her tall, muscular husband watching her with concerned blue eyes) could say it and they’d go, ‘he’s a real tough guy but he knows what he wants and that’s cool. I can’t.”
It’s the kind of moment that every woman who works for themselves has built something on their own, works in a male-dominated field or has any ambition at all knows all too well. The standards are different for us. We play by different rules. And the threshold for fucking up or pissing people off is infinitely lower than it is for men. They can yell, scream, rage. Abuse, misuse and commit crimes, all the while still being rewarded with power, opportunity and adulation. Women can’t. We’re too emotional, frivolous, cold, vapid, accidentally successful. All I can think while watching, other than finding it deeply relatable is Fuck. When will it be enough? When will women not have to worry about this shit anymore?
It’s a striking moment for director Ry Russo-Young to capture on camera and immediately reminds me of another documentary moment from a few years before; Taylor Swift sitting in her house, talking to Miss Americana director, about misogny, sexism and slut shaming, then immediately apologising for “a real soapbox.” And I find myself wondering if these women with their huge brands, more money than God and blistering work ethics still feel this way - what on earth is it going to take for the rest of us to get free from it? If anyone reckons they have an answer, let me know.
I have to be honest. Before watching the two-part documentary aptly named Call Her Alex, I didn’t know a lot about Alex Cooper or the depth of the Call Her Daddy phenomenon. Don’t get me wrong, I knew the broad strokes as someone who pays attention to media and the coveted club of people that get to tell stories and talk as part of their career, something that still sounds completely fantastical to me, even as I myself have slowly started to join that club. The $60 million Spotify deal and the even bigger move to SiriusXM for $125 million stood out as specific highlights. And sure, I’d heard a few episodes of the podcast or seen the headlines on social media if a guest revealed something particularly salacious or surprisingly vulnerable but I didn’t know the whole story.
And yet I’ll admit, that even without knowing the full story, I already had an idea of what I thought it would be. A sketch of who I thought Alex Cooper was. A blonde ‘Barbie girl’ (I now know she’s a natural redhead) who wasn’t afraid to be raunchy and seemed to lead a glossy life. Someone who made it look easy, as though she’d just floated into this world of celebrities sitting across from her in armchairs, seemingly ready to tell her whatever she wanted to know.
Well hello there, internalised misogny. I hate seeing you around. But I guess even the best of us, those of us who try to be self aware and intersectional and think critically slip up sometimes. Old habits die screaming, as it were. I didn’t even realise I’d thought that way about Alex Cooper, this woman I don’t actually know, until over archival footage of her childhood, she recalled being bullied relentlessly and I found myself rolling my eyes a little bit internally. Doubting how intense these moments had actually been, for a girl who seemed like she should and would have all the friends in the world.
It wasn’t until she included vlogs filmed on the nights of parties she knew were happening but wasn’t invited to, that I felt a ping of recognition and realised my mistake. I tried to examine why I’d felt that way; was it because of how she looked now? Talked? Her success? Her content? The fact that I was coming to her when she was almost 30 and seemed to have it all together, as opposed to following her through those awkward stages?
I don’t know, it could’ve been a mix of all of them honestly but the point is, preconceived ideas existed, and they were wrong. And I think it’s important to admit that out loud and online. To be unfiltered in acknowledging your mistakes, recognising your blind spots and creating both grace and space for people to learn, do better and grow.
Underneath my preconceived ideas, I discovered a girl I could actually relate to quite a lot. Someone who just loved making things and being themselves, who was figuring it all out as they went along. Where Alex had videos as a kid, I had words, trusting my voice more than my hands, thanks to the realities of living with Cerebral Palsy. I’d always felt awkward trying to wield a camera, not convinced I could ever actually execute and capture what I saw in my head or that it would be any good if I did (the same reason I struggle to take photos and mark moments that way, something I’m working on).
But I too was just a hungry storyteller, laptops and phones past, unfortunately lost to a graveyard now, full of novel ideas, short stories, Letters from the Editor for magazines I hoped to one day create and radio show intros/skits. I grew up in a time before podcasting was ever a thing but have wanted to do one, for years now and probably will soon.
That was one of my favourite parts of my role as co-founder and Editor In Chief at Missing Perspectives and something I miss a lot, so why not work to bring it back?
While both of us used the worlds we created to escape the real one, Alex was initially set for a very different career. She was good enough at soccer to play at the Division 1 (elite college) level and had a fully paid athletic scholarship to Boston University. Watching her fierce competitiveness and discipline unfold, I was confused. How had a woman seemingly set to take the world of women’s professional sport by storm ended up building a multi-million dollar media empire that gained traction when her blowjob technique (the Gluck Gluck 9000) went viral? On paper, the same building blocks of competitive instinct and discipline are required for both those things, and of course, women can contain multitudes but these seemed like very different paths.
The answer was far more sinister than I expected. Over her years at Boston University, Alex alleged a distressing and escalating pattern of sexual harassment at the hands of her head coach, Nancy Feldman. Obsessing over her body. Asking for repeated and extensive meetings alone. Demanding answers to intrusive questions about her sex life and personal relationships. Constantly using her position of power to intimidate, belittle and attempt to control, even exercising removal from games as a form of punishment for perceived infractions, not extended to any other member of the team. These are just the broad strokes, to get the details, I think it’s best you hear it from Alex herself. Especially considering she returns to Boston University for the first time since, on camera.
Cooper says that when she and her parents confronted the staff at BU, namely the Dean of Athletics, nothing was done. No investigation or attempt to verify Alex’s allegations was made. While Alex left her scholarship behind, too exhausted to continue to ‘play the game’, Nancy Feldman continued in her post at Boston University until her retirement in 2022. At the time of publishing, Boston University has released a statement denying any wrongdoing or knowledge of such behaviour.
Note: Given nothing has been proven legally, this experience can only be referred to as allegations, but for the record, I believe Alex.
Ah, so now I understand. Everything was taken away, a whole life disintegrated and needing to be replaced by a new ambitious goal. Of course. you’d return to the safe bright world of your childhood and try to build something. And of course you wouldn’t let it fail. Seems to me there’s an extra sparkly bit of resistant resilient reclaimation in having that new power come from sexuality and intimacy, when those were once the very tools wielded against you.
Alex Cooper makes people uncomfortable. Having a woman so willing to discuss things like sex and pleasure while also owning that she wants and has them is still considered pretty radical in 2025. Look at the way people treat Abbie Chatfield, Hannah Ferguson and Chantelle Otten here at home. Apparently, appetites for those things immediately cancel out your intelligence, your ability to ask hard questions and your ability to be the one calling the shots. Who knew?! Someone better tell the boys club ASAP, because they’re in serious trouble. Oh, wait…
That’s probably why the earliest iteration of the podcast, once co-hosted by Sofia Franklyn found a home at Barstool Sports, a hypermasculine company dripping in testosterone who probably thought they’d stumbled into a wet dream paradise. That’s not to say they weren’t supportive but to me, it makes a lot more sense, that Alex herself is in charge calling the shots and it doesn’t feel like a coincidence that doing it on her own terms has led to it being valued a lot more, both as a brand and as a platform. It says a lot about where the audiences are, that Kamala Harris made the podcast one of her only longform media stops during her presidential campaign last year. As ever, those who underestimate the power of the young woman do so at their peril.
Alex Cooper is the single most financially successful woman in podcasting. She pulls the kind of numbers that are normally reserved for global stadium tours, and I believe uses preconceived ideas like mine to her ultimate advantage. They are just one of the many tools she uses to get in the door and then bang! Before you know it, she’s hooked you in, just as likely to be discussing reproductive rights as she is red flag exes. It says a lot to me that Hollywood heavyweight Jane Fonda, who’s been being interviewed for over six decades, relentlessly probed and questioned over every aspect of her life calls Cooper one of the best interviewers she’s ever had.
All of this gives Alex Cooper a unique form of power, the kind that has allowed her to carve out her own podcast network, a platform I hope she uses to uplift diverse and marginalised voices whose stories have always belonged in front of a microphone but rarely been given the chance to get there. Alex using her privilege could change that. I think she’s one of the few players with the capital to help transform the media landscape, and I’ll be watching what she does next with keen eyes.
In the meantime, I’ve got world domination to plan and trails to blaze. So does Alex. So do you. Oh and Alex? If you ever want to have an on-mic chat, you know where to find me. Either that or I’d love to have you on my own show one day.