Sofia Franklyn is sharing her side of the story after Alex Cooper rehashed their drama on her recent docuseries.
“You all know my past. Thank u for being a part of my journey…this year is about letting MYSELF out of the Chd/Barstool Box & being my grown, complex self,” Franklyn, 32, wrote via her Instagram Story on Tuesday, June 9. “Less scared, less performative. More present & vulnerable.”
Alongside the message, Franklyn shared a link to her recent podcast episode where she opened up about the public’s misconceptions.
“I think the internet sees me as one way, which I love and is a part of me,” Franklyn said on the Thursday, June 5, episode of the “Sofia With a F” podcast. “There’s always going to be the ‘Call Her Daddy,’ Barstool, thing, right? Sexual, ditzy, which I mean I am those things. I can be sexual and ditzy and smart at the same time, you know? But also I think, after the drama, I had this really hard exterior because I was so scared.”
Franklyn reflected that she “became a different person,” which has “translated” into how she presents herself to the world. “I’m still kind of trying to crawl out of that, but I think in order to do that, I should be really open about it,” she said.
Franklyn rose to fame in 2018 when she started the “Call Her Daddy” podcast alongside Cooper, now 30. The pair have since parted ways, which Cooper opened up about on the first episode of Call Her Alex, which premiered via Hulu on Tuesday, June 10.
“It became really difficult to enjoy the process,” Cooper said on the episode. “It was the classic you think you see something online, and people genuinely believed we were like sisters, but our relationship was so awful.”
After Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy reached out, the duo signed a three-year deal with the company. Two years later, Portnoy heard rumors that the show was being shopped to other networks.
“I absolutely deserved more money, but unfortunately, we had signed a three-year contract with Barstool Sports, and they owned our IP,” Cooper said in her docuseries, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival, sponsored by FIJI Water. “Sofia and I went in together and we renegotiated our contacts. Dave ended up offering us what I considered the deal of a lifetime.”
Cooper alleged in the docuseries that Portnoy offered her and Franklyn $500,000 and ownership of the show.
“He said, ‘If you stay at Barstool for one more year, you can own Call Her Daddy.’ Sofia didn’t want to take the deal but I did. So I stayed,” Cooper said. “I realized the Daddy Gang was bigger than both of us. When I was going out on my own, I had to look inward and figure out where I wanted to take the show. I’ve never done a podcast where I have to talk for an hour by myself.”
Portnoy, for his part, made an appearance in the docuseries and revealed “they were helping pay a lot of the salaries at Barstool.”
After Cooper exited Barstool, she signed an exclusive deal with Spotify and went on to sign a $125 million deal with SiriusXM in August 2024.
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