Alex Cooper has recently spoken out regarding the explosive allegations made by Dave Portnoy, her former boss at Barstool, as detailed in his new memoir.
Cooper, now 31, was once a key figure at Barstool with her Call Her Daddy podcast. This came to an abrupt end following a high-profile breakup from the company alongside her then co-host Sofia Franklyn in 2021.
In his book, Cancel Me If You Can, Portnoy, aged 49, alluded to tensions surrounding the departure, dropping bombshell claims that Cooper and Franklyn had threatened to fabricate a sexual harassment allegation as a means to escape their contracts.
When probed about these assertions, Cooper sidestepped directly addressing the accusations by saying, “Dave’s got his version and I’ve got my version, and we’re all good.”
Portnoy’s recounts suggest that 2020 contract negotiations were fraught with tension, marked by a dramatic threat purportedly issued by the podcast hosts just before their departure.
Alex Cooper addressed Dave Portnoy’s bombshell sexual harassment plot allegations
Portnoy claimed that Cooper and former Call Her daddy co-host Sofia Franklyn threatened to concoct a bogus sexual harassment claim to get out of their contracts
In a bid to force through their contract demands, Portnoy claimed the Call Her Daddy hosts ‘simply stopped putting out their podcast’, sparking the possibility of the Barstool supremo suing them for breach of contract.
According to his memoir, the angry back-and-forth led to a secret meeting on the rooftop of Portnoy’s apartment building, in which he proposed ‘the most generous offer in Barstool history’, claiming it would have made them instant millionaires.
The girls went away and what Portnoy alleged happened next could have brought Barstool to its knees.
‘Out of nowhere, I got a call from Alex asking if she could meet with me again… without Sofia,’ he wrote. ‘I said yes and we once again trekked up to my rooftop. “I love the deal you proposed, and I want to take it. But Sofia is never going to take it.”
‘”Okay,” I said. “You guys realize I’ll sue you if you take the podcast to another network before your contract is out, right?” Alex claimed to me that they had a plan to say they were both sexually harassed at Barstool.
He later added: ‘For years, Barstool and I had been pilloried for making sexist jokes, but we’d never been accused of inappropriate workplace conduct. But had they decided to go that route, even though it was patently untrue, it would have been a tough fight for us to win in the court of public opinion. Nobody would have believed my side of the story.
‘I realize that this is a heavy accusation I just made: how Call Her Daddy was allegedly planning to break their contract with us by lying about sexual harassment at Barstool.’
Requests for comment on Portnoy’s claims to both Cooper and Franklyn from the Daily Mail went unanswered at the time.
Cooper worked for Portnoy when her Call Her Daddy podcast fell under the Barstool umbrella
Call Her Daddy rose to prominence as a Barstool podcast before an ugly split in 2020
Portnoy’s memoir is published via Gallery Books
However, Cooper, who is pregnant with her first child with husband Matt Kaplan, insisted on Wednesday that that particular tale is not how she recalled the events unfolding.
‘Whenever I see Dave online, we all enjoy his banter. He is a very entertaining person, and I have a very great and complicated relationship with Dave,’ she told Squawk Box. ‘He gave me my start in this industry and I will never not be grateful to him.
‘I haven’t read the book, but I remember seeing, obviously getting tagged in those things, and that’s not how I remember that at all. But I also am like, Dave’s got his version, and I’ve got my version, and we’re all good.’
But she refused to elaborate further on her side of the story, stating: ‘I’m in my mother era. I have no drama right now.’
In her 2025 Hulu documentary, Cooper alleged that she had been sexually harassed by her Boston University soccer coach while at the school.
Responding to Cooper’s initial allegations at the time, the University wrote; ‘Boston University has a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment.
‘We have a robust system of resources, support and staff dedicated to student wellbeing and a thorough reporting process through our Equal Opportunity Office.
‘We encourage members of our community to report any concerns, and we remain committed to fostering a safe and secure campus environment for all.’