Are you unwell Daddy Gang? I sure am because I have no idea which founding father to believe and support during these trying times. Are you Team Alex or Team Sofia?
Call Her Daddy, the famous sex-comedy podcast, has been through a lot of drama over the past few months. The show began in 2018 with two co-hosts, Alex Cooper and Sofia Franklyn, who were independently running the podcast until Barstool Sports bought it a few weeks after it aired because of the show’s growing popularity. Alex and Sofia were not only co-hosts, but best friends. They discussed their close relationship and joint living situation many times throughout the show, and it was honestly a great addition to their hilarious sex stories and advice segments. However, in May of 2020, the Daddy Gang (the name for Call Her Daddy’s following), discovered some shocking news.
Episode 81, “ Daddy Speaks,” was released on May 18th, almost six weeks after their last episode aired, and it was from the perspective of David Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports. This unexpected segment focused around his “unbiased” take on the Call Her Daddy drama. He goes on to reveal that Alex and Sofia at first both came to him together with talks of leaving Barstool entirely and going with another company. In order to stay, they asked for one million for each of them, 50% of the profit for whatever they do from now on, to be independent freelancers but still with Barstool, and to give back the Call Her Daddy name to them. Before the negotiations, Alex was making $506,000 a year and Sofia was making $461,000, but in the new deal they were supposed to be making 50-50. Portnoy goes on to explain how Alex came to him alone after this deal was discussed and claimed that Sofia was never going to agree to any deal with Barstool because Sofia’s boyfriend, known to the Daddy Gang as “suitman,” was actually an HBO producer and he was putting up offers for the show itself. So, what began as a business deal with Alex and Sofia basically versus Barstool, seemed to have led into a personal dispute between the two women. Though Barstool did give off somewhat of a controlling patriarchal vibe during this episode, it truly did seem like Portnoy was only invested in the financial side of things, and the only reason Barstool is appearing to be on Alex’s side is because she is the one who decided to stay on the show, while Sofia left.
Then, however, on May 27th, Alex Cooper released her first podcast as a single host, and she titled it “The Funeral,” indicating that she was mourning the loss of her former co-host and ex-best friend Sofia Franklyn. Alex now labels herself as the “one and only father,” and the “single founding father,” which are all sly digs at Sofia. In this episode, Alex tries to explain the situation, but she mainly discusses vaguely how the show has a lot of pressure and it ultimately is a blessing to be the single host now. Although, she does continuously say how she’s “grieving” and it’s like she’s “going through a divorce,” which all show some kind of compassion towards her former friend. She also references men like Sofia’s ex-boyfriend “suitman” who is really Peter Nelson, the former HBO sports producer, and Scooter Braun, who apparently also was involved briefly in possibly buying Call Her Daddy. She is very vocal about her negative feelings towards these men trying to poach her show, and she implies that Sofia is helping these men to do so.
Finally, this all leads up to the October 9th release of Sofia Franklyn’s new podcast, “Sofia with an F,” through Sloot Media. Sofia’s description of the show, and her new Instagram bio is: “Basic, Greedy, Lazy, Submissive, Weak-Minded, and that’s just a little bit about me.” She claims this is what the people involved in the drama called and labeled her when everything fell apart. She discusses on her new show her side or the story, and for a large portion of the episode she addresses Alex personally and hounds her for being a backstabbing person who has lost all of her friends because of how she treats them. Sofia is vocal about how she wrote all her own material while Alex did not write her own jokes and had to read off of a script every time. Sofia also addresses her fans and pleads to them, assuring them that she would never let a man make those big financial decisions for her. Then she goes on to inform her audience that she will not only be talking about sex on her new show; she will be dicussing all aspects of her life in order to give more personal insight to her fans about her life.
Personally, I have no idea which team I am on. At first I was Team Alex of course, because hers was the only perspective that the Daddy Gang heard from. Alex made it seem like Sofia was being stubborn and disagreeable and that she left Alex in the dust. I also did not like how Sofia was supposedly having all these powerful men help try and take over Call Her Daddy.
However, after listening to Sofia’s side, I feel very badly for the way Barstool and Alex portrayed her during the dispute because it really was a kind of hate/smear campaign against Sofia, so that has got to hurt coming from your former best friend and employer. I have also known a lot of Alex’s in my life. I have known one too many women who do not elevate female friendships as high as they should, so when Sofia talked about how Alex went behind her back to get the rights to Call Her Daddy all to herself, it brought back feelings of betrayal from my own life. However, Sofia could be totally lying and Alex could have been the one backstabbed by Sofia. There is really now way to know for sure if they are saying contrasting things. Though I know there are strong feelings on both sides, Team Alex or Team Sofia, I am choosing to stay in the middle. I miss both of my founding fathers, so I will continue to listen to both Call Her Daddy and Sofia with a F. Of course I wish they would have never gotten divorced, but as they move on their fans must move on with them.