Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy says that former Call Her Daddy co-hosts Alex Cooper and Sofia Franklyn planned to falsely claim sexual harassment to break free of their contracts with the company.
Portnoy makes the claim in his new book, Cancel Me If You Can. The podcast launched on Barstool in 2018 and quickly built a large following, particularly among young women. A public breakup between the co-hosts in 2020 followed a dispute over contract negotiations and a feud between Cooper and Franklyn.
In the book, Portnoy describes a conversation in which he told the hosts he would sue if they took the podcast to another network before their contracts ended. He wrote that Cooper then told him they had a plan.
"'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," Portnoy wrote.
He continued: "That was it. That was their game plan to get out of their contractual obligation to Barstool Sports in the event that I did not relinquish their IP to them and wish them well on their merry way as they jumped ship to a rival podcast network."
Portnoy added that he has "never been accused of inappropriate workplace conduct," but wrote that a false allegation would have been difficult to fight publicly. "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," he wrote.
Portnoy also sat down with WSJ Magazine to promote the book. WSJ senior writer Joshua Chaffin described the Cooper conversation in his piece and noted that "Cooper and Franklyn didn't respond to requests for comment."
Portnoy told Chaffin: "The dirty little secret nobody else knew about… the girls hated each other."
Cooper and Franklyn also did not respond to Fox News when it sought comment. Cooper eventually stayed at Barstool long enough to retain her intellectual property rights, then signed with Spotify for a deal that reportedly paid her $20 million per year. Franklyn now hosts her own podcast, Sofia with an F.
