Sofia Franklyn Claims Alex Cooper Tried to Get Her Fired Before Infamous ‘Call Her Daddy’ Split

The former Call Her Daddy co-host detailed the fallout with Cooper and Barstool in her upcoming memoir Daddy Issues

Believe it or not, the friend-and-podcast breakup between Sofia Franklyn and Alex Cooper was even messier than what was already publicly known.

By now, most pop culture aficionados know the story of Call Her Daddy and its messy, public fracture. Franklyn and her then-best friend and roommate, Cooper, started the podcast in 2018 and quickly turned the show — celebrated for its raunch and candor about modern dating — into a million-listener hit. When they negotiated their contract with the Dave Portnoy-owned Barstool Sports in 2020, a months-long slog ended with Cooper as sole host and Franklyn ousted. 

The fallout has been dissected by the public for years, with both Cooper and Franklyn speaking broadly about it. But Franklyn is opening up in detail about the days leading up to the split in her upcoming memoir, Daddy Issues. In a new excerpt published by the Hollywood Reporter, Franklyn recalled learning that Cooper had been secretly making $20,000 more than her every year — and had even attempted to get her fired long before they parted ways professionally.

“All rationality is gone. The bitch. I feel pure hatred. I might combust. Who is this person? Alex, who is she? Am I stupid? Gullible? Dumb? Naive? Living something that wasn’t true? That’s not true? Was she ever my friend?” she wrote in the excerpt, revealing that she learned about the pay discrepancy through her lawyer. “I think about every contract conversation we’ve ever had. Jokes. How we share every single fucking thing with each other — space, time, emotions, work, pain, highs, shame, heartbreak, family. Alex wouldn’t do this. Lie about something so stupid. To me.” 

According to the excerpt, Franklyn’s feelings were exacerbated by the contract negotiations, which had dragged on because the group couldn’t agree on compensation. “When did she start making more money? Why wouldn’t she just tell me about it? Not just as a friend, but while we’re sitting in meetings and calls for six months fighting for fair pay,” Franklyn wrote. “As CO-OWNERS. Why is she doing this? What is the truth?” 

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To understand what she had just learned, she reached out to a former producer on the show and a childhood friend of Cooper’s to get answers. The call only made things worse. “She didn’t tell you because she didn’t want you to know she tried to get you fired,” Franklyn recalled the friend saying.

“We stay on the phone for another hour, maybe more. I have no sense of reality, much less of the time. Muji tells me Alex has even reached out to him recently, asking him to come on as a producer. Hire him back?? Has she been anticipating a switch-up?” she wrote. “He tells me this shit started years ago.”

A rep for Cooper did not immediately return Rolling Stone‘s request for comment.

Earlier this year, Franklyn told Rolling Stone that she wrote Daddy Issues to try and come to terms, on paper, with the friend breakup that changed her life forever. “Six years ago, I was reeling from an experience I didn’t understand. I needed to grow up and be free of ego as much as humanly possible,” she said in February. “A book is reflective, vulnerable; it can’t be performative. The writing practice has been intense — sitting down, laying everything bare — but probably the most enriching thing I’ve ever done.” 

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Franklyn added that while Daddy Issues will include her perspective on the Call Her Daddy breakup, the book also contains her long personal journey of relearning what she wants from her life and career. 

“Is this who she is? I think about all the times I thought we were sisters, all the moments when it felt like the energy of the world could be generated from us ping-ponging off each other alone,” she concluded the excerpted chapter. “Where did that girl go? Who am I without her?”