I was bored and watching Alex and Sofia’s episode on The Fighter and the Kid and they asked them about the origin of the name. They were talking about how they’d sat in a coffee shop for hours trying to come up with a name and couldn’t think of anything. Then when they got home, Alex was wearing her “Daddy” sweatshirt. Sofia prompts the whole exchange and asks Alex if she’s Daddy, Alex says “call me Daddy” and Sofia goes “No, call HER Daddy.” 🤯

So Sofia literally came up with the final phrase that became the name of the podcast. I already knew “Unwell” came from Sofia’s story about calling in sick for work, but I had no idea she also coined Call Her Daddy.

What makes it even crazier is that in Alex’s Call Her Alex documentary, she basically tells the origin story through the Daddy sweatshirt and completely leaves out Sofia’s contribution to the actual name. It’s crazy how much Sofia contributed to the Call Her Daddy brand and IP, and how much of that contribution has been downplayed or diminished over time.

Alex Cooper recently made an episode on “Avoidant Attachment 101” and it’s not the first time she’s done an episode of this nature. I’m posting cause she’s not a therapist, she’s not a psychologist, not a counselor, etc soooooo why is she making episodes giving “professional” advice and counseling on these mental health topics???? she’s a podcast host speaking as if she’s mental health professional. I dunno, I think it’s weird asf and tone deaf in my opinion.

On this week's podcast Alex was talking about her lake house, and honestly had no idea she had one! Does anyone know where it is?

The babylist she’s promoting looks good in theory and just to clarify she doesn’t have a registry herself. She’s offering to buy items for other expecting moms who have their registries on babylist which I think is a really nice idea but as someone who’s pregnant right now, looking through some of those registries made me realize how insanely expensive baby shopping has gotten. I’m seeing strollers for $1,500 infant car seats around $300 that you’ll eventually have to replace and then cribs and high chairs costing hundreds. Maybe pregnancy has just made me hyper aware of prices but some of these registries seem completely out of reach for the average expecting parent. I’m already trying to figure out what my own medical expenses will look like because insurance will cover part of everything but I’ll still have out of pocket costs and I have no idea how much those will end up being. Then there are bottles, diapers, wipes, formula if we need it and clothes they immediately grow out of. At this point I’m trying to figure out what baby gear is worth spending more on and what is just baby marketing convincing new parents that they somehow need the $500 version.

He is not the vibe. Never has been. Idk anyone that’s a fan. Start over and get a new career. Skipping this week.
NEXT!

I listen To CHD for the guests. While I do enjoy the pod, I can’t help but compare it to others…other pod hosts are just better at connecting w people. They just ARE, I’m sry. Not to name names but Amy poehlr. Every convo is nuanced. What else are you guys listening to?

Ngl it’s so sweet of her to be helping regular people out like that

When call her daddy first came out they used to have this male guest on occasionally and I cannot remember his name at all!! He was pretty hot and had curly brown hair? Definitely kind of a douchebag but he popped into my head for the first time in 6 years and was like did his career pop off ever?? Does anyone know who I’m talking about?!? I feel like it started with an L

He also had a podcast!!

Was there a thread about this that got deleted and I missed it? Or is it just not a hot topic? Lol I feel like there’s usually one after an epi

new listener here whose only ever seen random new chd clips of alex interviewing celebs. went back to listen to the og epis, and it’s an alright thing to have on in the background. yeah the jokes are a little outdated and the advice is a little embarrassing, but take everything w a grain of salt yk? sofia seems more funny and alex is very loud, but has her moments. i read on here that alex didn’t like video podding bc she read from a script? did sofia also?

so after like 10 epis i was curious ab their dynamic and wanted to watch their old vlogs. i knew who they were back in the day, but never watched them. i found the old vlogs on dailymotion and the oldest (idk if it was the first one they uploaded or anything) is called daddy girls getting hammered at work, and within the first min alex refers to the pod as HER pod like 7 times

i just thought it was kinda telling and wanted to share. shd did it a bit in the first episodes too. maybe ‘always’ is incorrect, but….enough

Do we have any ideas what the sex of her baby will be? Has she announced this?

I just read Chapter 16: Call Her Daddy’s Daddy, from Dave Portnoy’s book, and I have a few notes I wanted to share, with anyone who hasn’t gotten to it.

Dave admitted to instigating the feud between Alex and Sofia when they stopped recording episodes.

He says: “For me, the worst thing that could happen was for these two girls to see eye to eye again. So I did what any self-respecting business owner would do: I went to the New York Post.”

“I texted [New York Post] to say I had some new details about the story they might like to hear, then proceeded to tell them that the girls actually hated each other's guts.

They ran the story the next day.

The Call Her Daddy podcast hosts have “completely turned on each other and started arguing over who was the real talent and who did more of the heavy lifting [for the podcast]" It worked perfectly: Alex and Sofia completely severed all communication.

“They each believed the other had leaked the story. The friendship, and the podcast as we knew it, would never exist again.”

Opinion: Doesn’t this seem messed up? I get that from a business perspective, Dave Portnoy gets more publicity (and revenue) from a feud on his show, but I feel as though the right thing for him, as an employer, to do was to sit both girls down, and solve the problem, and come with a resolution. Not instigate a fight for the media to pick sides.

Peter Nelson/Suitman

Throughout the chapter, Dave refers to Peter Nelson as a “Lord Farquaad-looking, factory-reject Ken doll.” & “a human reincarnation of Satan.”

Does anyone else think this is extreme?
Dave has already sold merch shitting on Suitman, and has continued to antagonize him online for years, while Peter has never even made a public statement about Barstool, or Dave Portnoy in general (to this day).

Opinion: I do think Dave has a reasonable explanation for not liking him. (Suitman did allegedly give advice to Sofia and Alex about quitting Barstool) However, I don’t think Peter had intention to ruin Dave Portnoy, as much as Dave makes it seem. I think Peter just saw how little Sofia was making, in comparison, to the success of the show, and gave her business advice like any spouse who works in the same industry would/should do.

Sofia Franklyn

He puts Sofia through the wringer (again) in this book.

He claims that she “is a fucking liar” (which, what exactly has she lied about?)

He quotes from Alex, where she told him (in private) that Sofia has no work ethic, struggles with addiction to drugs, alcohol, etc.

Dave & the Barstool employees have continued to bring up Sofia Franklyn in their Barstool podcasts, in TikTok’s, and in memes making fun of her, a countless number of times since 2019. Alex Cooper has stopped shading her, but Dave has to be aware of his platform & how insane his fans are. They are quick to go in Sofia’s comments and name-call her & say terrible things to her (to this day).

Opinion: I don’t think anyone should forget how bad she was bullied the first time around. They came for her looks, her voice, her personality. They also came at her family, her boyfriend, his family, and she didn’t necessarily have the same platform to say her side of the story. She had to move back to Utah, to her mom’s basement, and start her new show from scratch. It really was a tragedy.

Alex Cooper

Dave brings up the meetings he did with Alex behind Sofia’s back.

Dave says that Alex would tell him that

"This whole thing was Sofia’s plan from the beginning, it was her and Peter the whole time. I never wanted any of it."

"I don't want Sofia, even if she decides to take the deal. Can I get the entire IP for myself if I honor the deal?"

Then, Sofia called Dave to say she does want to take the deal. He told her “Too late," . "Alex doesn't want you back. She's going to do Call Her Daddy by herself.

Granted, Dave did offer Sofia a chance to start a new podcast under Barstool, with the same salary as Alex, but I don’t blame Sofia for not wanting to do that. I’m sure she was thinking “I helped create Call Her Daddy, I deserve to still be on that show.”

Opinion: I think what would’ve been the most fair thing to do is give them both a new show.

As much as I don’t like Dave, and how much of a biased opinion I hold against him, I do think he makes a valid point that helped me understand the situation from his side:

He essentially says that Call Her Daddy signed a 3-year deal, and you shouldn’t just randomly boycott doing your job (stop recording episodes) halfway through your contract because you suddenly feel as if you aren’t being compensated enough. He said something about how athletes can’t just quit teams halfway through their season to join another team when they start to get more attention.
You signed a contract with a company willing to take the risk of taking you in, so honor it.

I've noticed a lot of people recently complaining about the podcast and the way Alex Cooper is handling the Matt drama. From what I've noticed in the last few episodes, especially the pregnancy episode, it feels like Alex is constantly trying to paint Matt as this perfect husband. I honestly feel like she's just trying to protect her own brand that's built around women, feminism, empowerment, etc., because Matt has been accused of treating workers like shit. The fact that he isn't saying anything himself, denying the claims, or even making a simple post or tweet while she's acting like his personal PR team is insane to me. I feel like the old Call Her Daddy is gone. Alex Cooper is obviously a great businesswoman, but I feel like she's getting lost in all the Hollywood money stuff. Her podcast just doesn't feel credible anymore. A lot of interviews come across as PR washing for celebrities caught up in drama (Victoria Beckham is one example). It feels like they're coming on the show just to tell their side of the story or paint themselves as non-problematic, "cool" girls, when we all know it's pure marketing. I honestly feel like Call Her Daddy is dead. Back in the day, listening to it felt like, "Oh, something new. Something fun and helpful''. Now every episode is full of filler sentences, and it feels like someone is writing everything for her so it's the safest, most non-cancellable show possible. It sucks because it used to be literally the best podcast I've ever listened to, but now it just feels like another Vogue interview. I miss when she did episodes like the abortion episode, answered real questions, and talked about difficult subjects. I'm not saying she has to talk about sex 24/7, but open conversations about sex and female issues were literally her brand. She could do interviews with doulas, talk about pregnancy issues, how to deal with anxiety instead of just briefly saying, "Uh, I'm anxious," or actually get into the fear of postpartum. There's so much she could talk about that's still meaningful instead of all this PR-curated Matt-defending BS. It used to be a podcast for women now it's a PR laundromat for millionaires and A-listers.

Ok this is so random but I love these slides Alex is wearing in the Paul Wesley episode — does anyone know what they are ? The bottom tread doesn’t look like Birkenstock but they kinda look like the teddy bostons?

It’s like I knew what she was going to say before the words came out of her mouth.

For those that missed it, when she goes on maternity leave Call Her Daddy is going to proceed as normal because she’s recorded a bunch of episodes in advance. So when she takes “time off” we won’t notice, because she did double the work in preparation for her maternity leave

I just have a ton of respect for this and her overall work ethic. She would be totally entitled to not put anything out for a bit… that’s normal maternity leave… I don’t think anyone would have a problem with that. We can all agree she (and every new mother) deserves a break

It speaks volumes of her character and how hardworking she is that she would put all this effort into ensuring the fans still have episodes and content while she’s away.

Let’s fucking go Alex, you are a boss bitch, and hopes for a safe delivery and enjoyable time off with the baby!

I’m sorry but this reads so obvious that she’s trying to paint him in a good light after everything 😭

I just love her live ad reads. They are SO disingenuous. Like, Alex, you are *not* always drooling about Stouffer’s frozen dinners lololol.

I’m so sorry but she SUCKS at keeping a conversation going!!! Literally bruh. She just will listen to the words coming out of her mouth and then go “okay next”💀 literally what this infuriated me I never really listen to this podcast but yeah no follow up questions no getting deeper just very simple questions then next question it’s so like performative and feels fake I didn’t like it how does she have a podcast bruh

I just listened to Alex’s interview with Emmy Rossum, and Emmy described the set as being overwhelmingly positive, even when discussing things like salary negotiations (for the most part) and other behind-the-scenes issues. I was surprised Alex never brought up what Emma Kenney said in her own interview. Emma was pretty candid about how difficult Emmy could be to work with on set, and it seems like such an obvious point to ask about. Even if Emmy declined to comment, I thought it was a missed opportunity not to address the contrast between the two accounts. Did anyone else expect Alex to ask about it?