Alex Cooper is on top of the world, and it’s built on other women. She just hosted the Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special on Disney+. Love Overboard, Unwell Productions’ first unscripted television series hosted by Gabby Windey, just premiered on Hulu. A new series was just announced. But what exactly got her here?
It’s not her interview skills, which are frequently and widely criticized — on TikTok, critics have called her “a PR opportunity, not a journalist or actual interviewer.” And it’s not the raunchy, sex-forward content that first put her on the map.
It’s ironic, actually, that the answer seems to be Alex’s approachable girl’s girl persona. Alex is just like you — she fan-girls over celebrities, she spends most of her time in sweats, and she loves to yap. She frames her approach as making guests “feel safe” rather than holding them accountable: “I have been on many shows — not to put other shows down — but the host is looking five inches to the right of my head and reading a teleprompter.” She’s just a girl you’re having a heart-to-heart with at the sleepover.
It’s difficult to stomach, but the truth is that the girl’s girl persona is just a clever ruse she uses until she gets close enough to take what she wants.
A Trail of Burned Women
Sofia Franklyn
Sofia Franklyn and Alex Cooper, roommates at the time, launched Call Her Daddy in 2018 and took off immediately. Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports purchased the rights just one month after its first episode debuted. The concept was genuinely novel: women talking about sex in graphic, unapologetic terms — the female equivalent of locker room talk, if locker room talk were actually interesting. Downloads rose from 12,000 to 2 million in just two months, so it tracks that the pair would want to renegotiate when the time came. As Sofia tells it, she and Alex had been aligned on their strategy for months — until she felt what she described as a “shift of insane magnitude” when Alex met with Portnoy in secret and signed a deal without her.
Since the split, Alex has gone on to build a $125M media empire off the shared intellectual property and cultural cachet of Call Her Daddy — and off the word “Unwell,” which fans widely credit Sofia with coining on the podcast.
Alix Earle
Following Alix Earle’s overnight rise to fame via her GRWM TikToks, Alex Cooper signed her as the first Unwell Network podcast, Hot Mess. In early 2025, Hot Mess was dropped from the network. Sources cited business friction, with Earle’s father concluding it “ended up not being a smart business move.” Earle later hinted at the falling out on her Co-Star app TikTok, saying the app told her she “can start s—” and that she had “so much information” — before a fan asked what happened between her and Cooper, and she replied: “How much time do you have?” But here’s the thing about Alex vs. Alix: Cooper has clearly learned from the Sofia fallout, which means there are almost certainly ironclad NDAs in place. We may never get the full story, but the pattern speaks for itself.
A New Level of Depravity
Taylor Frankie Paul is having a rough stretch. I’m not excusing her behavior (I’m actually quite repulsed), but it’s impossible to ignore that her ex and the father of her youngest child, Dakota Mortensen, is, at minimum, 50% of the problem. The coordinated media blitz that kicked off just days before TFP’s Bachelorette season was set to air was not a coincidence.
So imagine my surprise when Unwell Productions announced Unwell Winter Games this week, featuring none other than Dakota Mortensen as a cast member. Since so much has transpired, fans might have forgotten that TFP actually announced her Bachelorette casting on Call Her Daddy on September 10, 2025 — so platforming the other party in her public unraveling feels less like a creative choice and more like a statement.
In addition to the Mormons, Huda from Love Island was a baffling and problematic casting choice. During an Instagram Live in October 2025, a viewer called Olandria the N-word — and Huda laughed before ending the call. That’s not a gray area, and it’s not something you quietly move past.
The Bottom Line
Alex Cooper has chosen money over self, friendship, and allyship, yet she successfully became a cultural lightning rod off the brand positioning that she is one of us, that she is for women, by women. But Alex Cooper is a vampire. She just feeds on cash instead of blood.
Sofia Franklyn’s Daddy Issues hits November 10th. Watch this space!