{"id":771296,"date":"2026-06-30T15:29:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/771296\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T15:29:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:29:18","slug":"dave-portnoy-on-how-alex-cooper-and-sofia-franklyn-left-barstool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/771296\/","title":{"rendered":"Dave Portnoy On How Alex Cooper and Sofia Franklyn Left Barstool"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDave Portnoy<\/a> revisited Alex Cooper<\/a> and Sofia Franklyn<\/a>\u2018s acrimonious exit from Barstool Sports, with the media mogul revealing that the former Call Her Daddy<\/a> co-hosts had a plan to say they were sexually harassed in order to get out of their contracts. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn a new interview<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tCall 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\u2019s pitch struck him as something \u201cdifferent.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s not my cup of tea but I know I haven\u2019t seen it before. Let\u2019s give it a shot,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe 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 \u201cwilling to step on my neck and burn any bridge to get ahead.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tPortnoy 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. <\/p>\n

\n\tAlso in the interview, Portnoy confirms that Cooper and Franklyn \u201chated each other.\u201d 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. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn a 2024 interview <\/a>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.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m so happy that I trusted myself and fought for this IP [the\u00a0Call Her Daddy\u00a0brand and show archive],\u201d said Cooper. \u201cBecause 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, \u201cI will stay another year. I\u2019ll do whatever it takes. I want that IP.\u201d Because I had put so much sweat equity into this \u2014 marketing, editing, writing, all of it. On [Sofia\u2019s] side, she was like, \u201cI think we could start a show called Girls in the Bathroom, \u201d or whatever, \u201cand it will be just as good.\u201d And I was like, \u201cThat may be true. But in my personal opinion, I\u2019m not giving up this IP. I don\u2019t want to start over.\u201d Thank God I saw the worth of the IP and the trademarks and the catalog. That\u2019s what comes to my mind. The minute I sign a new deal, every time, I text Dave Portnoy a little thank-you.\u201d <\/p>\n

Cooper also told THR that Portnoy was in a bind with what to do with Call Her Daddy. \u201cHe was in a difficult position. We were making him so much money, and the show had blown up so heavily,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn why Portnoy couldn\u2019t just recast Call Her Daddy with new people, Cooper said he couldn\u2019t do it. \u201cWhen I first signed with Barstool, every single show had emoji characters on their album cover \u2014 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,\u201d Cooper said. <\/p>\n

\n\tShe added, \u201cI was trying to force their hand so that when you thought of\u00a0Call Her Daddy, you thought of us. So when he offered the IP along with not much money for one more year, I didn\u2019t give a shit about the money. I was like, \u201cThis IP is a gold mine. I\u2019m going to be a multimillionaire and will be set for life if I just stay one year.\u201d 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\u2019t, and that\u2019s business.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dave Portnoy revisited Alex Cooper and Sofia Franklyn\u2018s acrimonious exit from Barstool Sports, with the media mogul revealing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":771297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[29523,49,27947,48,361,11257,75,329,273812],"class_list":["post-771296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-alex-cooper","tag-ca","tag-call-her-daddy","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-dave-portnoy","tag-entertainment","tag-podcasts","tag-sofia-franklyn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}