There are breakups, and then there are public executions.
Sofia Franklyn has taken a pair of scissors to the past — specifically to Alex Cooper — on the cover of her forthcoming memoir, Daddy Issues. The image, a throwback to December 2018, shows the two former co-hosts of Call Her Daddy in their early rocket-ship days. But Cooper’s face has been cleanly cut out. Only a sweep of blonde hair and a sliver of outfit remain.
It’s not subtle. It’s not meant to be.
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Franklyn said she experimented with other concepts — including a childhood photo meant to signal emotional depth beyond the internet caricature. She scrapped it. Too soft.
“I needed the cover to tell a story beyond the title,” she said, calling the final image “jarring” by design. The message is clear: this isn’t nostalgia. It’s revision.
Daddy Issues lands Nov. 10 and, according to Franklyn, will detail the collapse of her partnership with Cooper — including why she walked away from Call Her Daddy at the height of its ascent.
“Six years ago, I was reeling from an experience I didn’t understand,” she said, referencing her 2020 exit. “I needed to grow up and be free of ego as much as possible.”
The Fallout That Changed Podcasting
Franklyn, now 33, and Cooper, 31, built Call Her Daddy into a cultural machine in 2018 under the Barstool Sports banner. The show’s formula — explicit talk, transactional dating advice, weaponized candor — was blunt, marketable, and lucrative.
Then came the contract war.
As negotiations with Barstool intensified in 2020, tensions between the co-hosts — roommates at the time in New York — began spilling into public view. Dave Portnoy, Barstool’s founder, accused both women of being “unprofessional, disloyal and greedy” as the dispute played out online.
By May, the standoff had fractured. Cooper accepted Portnoy’s final offer, which reportedly included ownership of the show. Franklyn declined and exited. Cooper stayed. The brand survived. The friendship didn’t.
Franklyn launched her own podcast, Sofia with an F, and the two have traded commentary — sometimes direct, sometimes thinly veiled — ever since.
In 2022, during an appearance on The Morning Toast, Franklyn said there was a “zero percent” chance of a reunion. “Unless she Venmos me $30 million,” she added, a pointed reference to Cooper’s reported $60 million Spotify deal in 2021.
Cooper has offered her own counter-narrative. In a 2023 appearance on Barstool Radio, she described the behind-the-scenes dynamic as “so bad,” suggesting the partnership was destined to implode, contract dispute or not.
Last year, Cooper expanded on that account in her Hulu documentary, Call Her Alex, portraying the relationship as strained from the outset — two very different operators under one microphone.
A Memoir as Counterattack
Memoirs are often exercises in reputation management. This one looks more like a counterpunch.
By physically cutting Cooper from the cover, Franklyn has turned a business disagreement into visual shorthand. It’s a clean metaphor in an industry built on branding: erase the partner, reclaim the narrative.
Whether Daddy Issues delivers new disclosures or simply recontextualizes familiar headlines remains to be seen. But the marketing strategy is precise. The audience that once dissected every episode of Call Her Daddy will now dissect this.
Podcasting has matured into a corporate battlefield — nine-figure deals, intellectual property wars, streaming-platform exclusives. But at its core, it’s still about personality. About chemistry. And about what happens when it curdles.
Franklyn is betting readers want her version — unfiltered, or at least selectively filtered.
On Nov. 10, we’ll find out how much of the audience is still listening.
Last modified: March 3, 2026
