Dave Portnoy’s New Claims Against Alex Cooper & Sofia Franklyn

Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy isn’t afraid to spill the tea, and his latest admission is piping fucking hot.

In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Portnoy alleges that Alex Cooper told him directly that she and ex-co-host Sofia Franklyn planned to fabricate sexual harassment claims to exit their Barstool contracts.

Yikes! This comes after a slew of recent articles have emerged claiming that Cooper’s Unwell Network is a toxic workplace. More than 40 sources — both current and former employees — came forward about the alleged work conditions of Unwell and the behaviour of her husband and business partner, Matt Kaplan.

Portony claims that at that time, Cooper and Franklyn were “willing to step on my neck and burn any bridge to get ahead.” Cooper, he claims, told him she and Franklyn had allegedly devised the plan.

“The dirty little secret nobody else knew about [“Call Her Daddy”]: The girls hated each other,” he elaborates in his new book, “Cancel Me If You Can”. The debut novel is a chaotic mix of Barstool origin story, tea by the sea and somewhat of a fuck you to all his haters.

Barstools El Presidente is currently on some kinda press tour (??) for a book he claims to have written because he “liked the idea of walking through an airport and seeing it in the window.” Yeah, right.

Alex Cooper fires back at toxic workplace allegations

Speaking with The Wall Street Journal‘s Suzanne Vranica at Cannes last week, Cooper briefly touched on the allegations, sharing she was “extremely proud” of what they’ve built at Unwell.

“I will say that building a startup, there is so much growth that comes with that, and I am extremely proud of what we have built at Unwell,” she told the publication.

“And I will just kind of leave it at ‘don’t believe everything that you read on the internet’ — but I think everyone knows that at this point.”

When she was pressed once more on the claims, Cooper reiterated how proud she was of Unwell, and stressed that women within the industry are “held to a completely different standard”.

“I think that we have done a really incredible job at Unwell, and I think if you walk the halls, there are so many people who are so happy to work at this company,” she said.

“I think, unfortunately, being a woman in this industry is extremely difficult because you’re held to a completely different standard. Whether it’s a smear campaign being created for someone’s narrative, whatever it be.”

“I think when you read lies about yourself to fuel something else that is an obvious situation going on, it’s hard. But I think the reason that I’ve had success in this industry is I have really thick skin, and I’m going to keep pushing forward.”

Cooper and Kaplan launched the Unwell Network in 2023, describing it as a production company geared towards Gen Z.

Sofia Franklyn is writing a memoir about the ‘Call Her Daddy’ fallout

Franklyn — the other half of the drama — is dropping a memoir about the fallout later this year. Apparently, Daddy Issues (good name!) will delve not only into her time on Call Her Daddy but also into the impact the very public fallout with Cooper had on not only her career but her personally.

“The decision [to write the book] was one I came to on my own,” she told Rolling Stone. “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.

“Everything that we had been working toward and planning for the last half a year to year was all of a sudden not the plan anymore, and [Cooper thought] we needed to just stay with this company and do what [Portnoy] was saying,” she revealed.

Hinting that there was more that went on at the time than even she realised. “I found out later [Cooper and Portnoy] 1,000 per cent had this relationship that I wasn’t aware of and not a part of. I thought [Cooper was my] best friend, sister, and we are not hiding anything. There’s no way in hell I would speak to our boss without you, that would be fucking crazy, and I don’t think that went both ways.”

Interesting…

Given Portony’s book drops on June 30 and Franklyn’s on November 10, we don’t think this is the end of all the Daddy dramas.

We’ll keep you posted.

Lead Image: Alex Cooper / Dave Portnoy / Sofia Frankly / Instagram