The Demonization of Sofia Franklyn

In May of last year, even amongst the very onset of the pandemic, Barstool Sports’ infamous podcast Call Her Daddy was taking over the internet. While the show grew a dedicated fan base around its comedic sex-positive material from its inception in October of 2018 and has been consistently ranking on the top podcast charts, this time around, the show was receiving attention for a different reason - a supposed feud between hosts Alex Cooper and Sofia Franklyn that would end up destroying the show as listeners had once known it.

From what has been said from both parties, tensions had been transpiring on both sides for weeks up until the drama reached the internet. In February of that year, Alex and Sofia began uploading episodes with cryptic titles and descriptions such as “It’s Over”, “We Had Fun”, and “Sorry for the Shit Show”, all of which altered fans that something was going on behind the scenes, presumably with Barstool. The duo remained silent on the meaning of their messages through April, during which both hosts were virtually silent on their respective social media. It was not until May 16th when The New York Post released their article, “‘Call Her Daddy’ podcast hosts have ‘turned on each other,’ insider says,”, featuring the hosts leaked original Barstool contracts as well as insider comments about tensions between the two, that listeners were made aware of the behind-the-scenes issues, much to their surprise. Soon after the article's release, it seemed as though every corner of the internet was talking about the show, with YouTubers, podcasters, and major media outlets weighing in and discussing the situation. In typical Barstool fashion, CEO Dave Portnoy took to social media and drew even more attention to the situation, unleashing a brigade of memes and posts that only fueled listeners confusion and interest. However, fans remained very much so in the dark about the actual details of the situation until host Alex Cooper uploaded her YouTube video “The Truth about Call Her Daddy,” which sits at just over 3.5 million views 10 months later.

In case you haven’t watched the video, I’ll sum it up on the most basic of terms (But, I’d recommend switching tabs and watching it quickly). Sofia’s boyfriend, an HBO exec nicknamed “Suitman” on the show, was telling the girls they were being paid way below what they should have been based on their numbers - he referred to this number as “industry standard,” while Alex claims he never disclosed an exact number. Sofia and Alex got serious about renegotiating their contract, and eventually contemplated leaving Barstool and breaching their original contract, starting a new show without their original IP. During contract negotiations, the girls ended up on completely different pages, with Alex being fine with the deal Portnoy offered them upon renegotiating, whereas Sofia continued pushing for more on their end, in terms of a higher salary, shorter contract length, and other increases in different areas. Alex discusses the timeline of the shows inception, contracts, and personal fights with Sofia, ultimately concluding the 34 minute video with the news that from there on out, she would be the sole host of the show given irreconcilable differences in opinion and vision and her willingness to come to an agreement with Portnoy, in contrast to Sofia. 

Fans were quick to side with Alex, bombarding Sofia’s respective social media page with opinions such as, “Have fun at the unemployment office with your boo!”, “Hey guess what? You’re cancelled”, and even death threats. Following the video, Sofia was seemingly MIA on her socials until early October 2020 when she announced her new podcast, Sofia with an F, and updated her bio to read, “Basic, greedy, lazy, submissive, and that’s just a little bit about me,” a seemingly clever nod to the flood of comments and DMs she received following the controversy. 

Upon revisiting Alex’s video, along with the slew of defamatory smear campaigns and IGTV rants released by Portnoy, I couldn't help but rethink my original opinion about the controversy. While I, like many others, had been successfully swayed by Alex’s video to see Sofia in a negative light, upon re-watching, I found myself rethinking the situation. While I had once seen Sofia through the adjectives her bio reads, hearing the outline of the drama nearly a year since the dust has settled left me with a new perception of the situation. 

Through their combined social media efforts, Alex and Dave were able to successfully demonize Sofia, painting her as lazy, money hungry, and jealous, all of which contributed to her rightfully being left behind by the company as a result of her own greed - or so they wanted it to seem. But while we often champion other women to stand up for themselves in the workplace and demand the pay they deserve, we seemingly turned on Sofia for doing the same as a result of the narrative told that centered around the fact that Sofia was an example of someone “throwing it all away for a man,” as a comment on the YouTube video reads.

This narrative was successful in that it decentralized the drama as a money or business issue, and re-centered it as the result of Sofia’s romantic relationship. Instead of positioning Sofia as a host who believed in the value of her show and her work, the slew of media centered around her and Suitman made it seem as though she was a pushover, letting a man make her business decisions for her and ultimately destroying her career. There’s a reason this narrative resonated so strongly with the Call Her Daddy audience; for a show largely based on the friendship between hosts and discussion of female empowerment and relationships, Sofia’s allowance for her boyfriend to get involved with her business was a sort of betrayal to dedicated fans, who had grown accustomed to the detached and independent way the hosts spoke of men in their own lives. This idea is even proven by articles and videos published and uploaded during the drama, with an article from The Odyssey being titled, “Sofia Franklyn Became the Woman she told us all not to be,” a YouTube video by Shanon Lester titled, “THE TRUTH ABOUT CALL HER DADDY: When a Controlling Man Comes Between Friends,” and a comment on Alex’s video that writes, “Sofia threw her entire career and friendship away for a guy that's going to throw her away. THIS is what greed looks like, regardless of friendship.” Even Portnoy chimed in, saying on IGTV’s and livestreams with millions of views, “Sofia won’t do it, because Suitman is involved …. Even though I can’t fucking prove it,” and, “She has some boyfriend she's in cahoots with.”

“I lost a friend, you guys lost the duo … the show. And it fucking sucks. I think anyone on the internet and anyone watching this, anyone listening to the podcast has one, lost a friend, or two, and what probably hurts even more, is losing your friend to a boyfriend…” Alex says as she wraps up her video. She explains Sofia has people who “significantly influence her opinions,” and, “that's why I’m sitting here … I didn’t have a boyfriend make my decisions… I had to make a decision for myself.” While the first 20-some minutes of the video had largely been about contract negotiations, Alex uses the final minutes to solidify this timeline of Sofia ditching her for a man, while characterizing herself as the independent, cooperative part of the equation. She doubles down on the narrative around Sofia, speaking in terms of their destroyed friendship hoping that fans would resonate with the message - and many did.

So while fans erupted in hatred towards Sofia for ditching them for her boyfriend, the conversation around the fairness of their contracts seemingly stopped (which was probably the point). Based on Alex’s video, she explained that in their original contracts, they were slated to make $75k their first year, $85k the second, and $100k the third, and mentions that they got raises during their first year with the success of the show that resulted in them making around their second year salary. This is where Suitman comes more into play; he began advising the women on what they should be making, telling them they were being underpaid and making far below “industry standard.” And while Alex talks about this in a dismissive way, making it seem like he was purposely stearing them in the wrong direction, he isn’t necessarily wrong - they were being underpaid, even with their raises, based on their stats, downloads, and secure position on podcast charts nearly every week. To put it into perspective, Joe Rogan - whose show securely held the number one spot on the charts - signed a $100 million dollar exclusive deal with Spotify in May of 2020.  As of today, Call Her Daddy is sitting at number 2 on the top charts. 

It wasn’t wrong of Sofia to be asking for more from Barstool and it wasn’t wrong of Alex to personally be fine with Dave’s negotiated deal, but it is questionable that we allowed the narrative to decentralize the issue of their payment and contract in favor of the details of Sofia's personal relationship. Alex says it herself in her YouTube video that Suitman was not the only person telling them they were being underpaid. “I remember .. I have some friends in the NHL who told me that they were out partying with the guys who have a hockey podcast at Barstool, and there were a lot of comments about how our contract is so pathetic, and ‘Oh my god those girls are getting fucked’… ‘It's so embarrassing omg’… ” She also goes on to explain that during their contract negotiations, despite her thinking the asks were astronomical, Barstool continuously hit Sofia’s numbers and percentages; lots of information is presented that supports Sofia’s decisions, and yet, listeners chose to ignore this in favor of degrading a woman based on her romantic relationship and the fallout of her public friendship with little questioning. Neither Sofia nor Alex are entirely blame-free, but the way in which the situation was carefully manipulated to unfold unfairly painted Sofia as the villain to Alex’s hero.

Almost a year later the dust has settled and Alex remains the host of Call Her Daddy, whereas Sofia has started her own show Sofia with an F. Both are successful in their respective endeavors, with Sofia regaining her stability after a tumultuous couple of months with her new sex-and-comedy based podcast. If there is anything we can learn from this situation, it is that we need to shift the way we see women in the business world, and how quickly we accept a narrative laid out for us online. All it took was a 30 minute video for listeners to brutally attack Sofia, overlooking certain details of the situation to fit whatever story they personally decided was true. If Sofia had been a man pushing for a higher salary and percentages, the internet would have cheered - or not even thought to report a story on it - and yet, instead, it tore her apart. As Morgan Pravato writes in her article “We should be rooting for both original hosts of ‘Call Her Daddy’”, “She knows her worth and refuses to apologize for it … What’s crucial is that Franklyn admits to walking away from a situation she felt was hurting her. That’s easier said than done for a lot of women in media — or any career field.” Instead of continuously pitting these women against each other, we should take a step back and reassess why exactly we were made to do so in the first place.