"I always used to say, 'I'm never getting married.' I thought it would threaten my independence. No man should be able to say that I'm his. My view changed with Matt."

You've heard her voice. You've seen her Instagram. You've probably laughed along with her unfiltered takes on relationships, sex, and life.

Alex Cooper built "Call Her Daddy" from an apartment podcast into a media franchise worth a reported nine figures. Net worth: estimated $60 million. January 2026: Golden Globes in Gucci and 110 carats of Lorraine Schwartz diamonds, nominated in the ceremony's inaugural Best Podcast category.

But her 2025 Hulu docuseries Call Her Alex revealed something else. The show spotlights sexual harassment allegations Cooper says she endured as a Boston University soccer player. Trauma she'd buried for a decade.

So what drives someone to build relentlessly, talk about anything on-air, and get celebrities to reveal the parts they usually keep hidden?

The Enneagram offers one useful map.

TL;DR: Why Alex Cooper is an Enneagram Type 7
  • Freedom-First Founder: Cooper keeps reinventing—from the raunchy early days of "Call Her Daddy" to A-list interviews, a beverage line, and the first-ever Golden Globes podcast nomination. Type 7s chase variety and resist getting boxed in.
  • Momentum as a Strategy: Behind the jokes is a core fear of limitation. You can hear it in how she talks about work, independence, and delaying motherhood so she can "grind at work and be selfish a little longer."
  • The "Daddy Gang" Flywheel: She didn’t just build a podcast, she built a culture. Type 7 enthusiasm scales, and her audience followed her from sex talk to celebrity interviews to harder conversations about ambition, identity, and pain.
  • Not Type 3 or Type 8: From the outside, she can look like an Achiever (Type 3) or Challenger (Type 8). The motive reads Type 7: freedom, options, fast pivots, and a refusal to stay in one box.
  • From Escape to Exposure: In Call Her Alex (2025), Cooper shares painful experiences from Boston University and what it looks like when a Type 7 stops outrunning the hard stuff.

What Makes Alex Cooper Tick?

Watch any interview with Alex. The speed. The quick cuts. The instinct to turn tension into a joke, then ask the uncomfortable question anyway.

That's Enneagram Type 7 energy: high curiosity, high momentum, low tolerance for anything that feels like a cage.

She said it herself in a 2025 Marie Claire interview: "I want to create new conversations. I want to create new IP. I want to create new ventures. I want to expand. I want to acquire. I want to do it all."

At their best, Type 7s channel restlessness into creativity and resilience. At their worst, that same energy becomes avoidance dressed up as ambition. Cooper's career shows both, sometimes in the same season.

Why Type 7 (and not Type 3 or Type 8)?

Her ambition can look like Type 3 ("achieve and be admired") or Type 8 ("be powerful and in control"). But the motive reads differently.

Type 3s chase external validation and polish their image. Type 8s confront and dominate. Cooper tends to charm, riff, and pivot. When something stops feeling expansive, she moves.

You see it in her biggest turns: the pivot after the 2020 "Daddy Divorce," the shift into A-list interviews, the "Unwell" expansion into products, TV, and agency work.

A healthy Type 7 integrates toward Type 5: slowing down, developing expertise, sitting with discomfort instead of sprinting past it. An unhealthy 7 slides toward Type 1 rigidity under stress, becoming more controlling, more convinced they need to "set the record straight." Both patterns show up in Cooper's story.

The Making of a Media Mogul

From Soccer Fields to Studio Microphones

Alex Cooper was born August 21, 1994, in Newtown, Pennsylvania. Her father, Bryan Cooper, spent over three decades as a broadcast producer for the Philadelphia Flyers. Her mother, Laurie, is a school psychologist.

That pairing explains more than it seems.

Bryan introduced cameras into the home early. Alex grew up filming comedy skits and impersonations in their basement, "enamored" by her father's career. She followed his path, majoring in film and television at Boston University.

Laurie shaped the other half: "A lot of what I'm doing goes back to just what my mother taught me from a young age, which is making someone feel seen and heard and understood."

The result? A broadcaster's instincts for content plus a psychologist's instincts for people.

Alex earned a Division I soccer scholarship to Boston University, logging 49 appearances for the Terriers from 2013 to 2015. This background explains both her work ethic and her comfort with locker-room talk.

But those college years held something darker. Something she wouldn't discuss publicly for a decade.

After graduating from BU's College of Communication in 2017, Alex moved to New York City. Advertising sales by day. Dreaming of something bigger by night. Her first media taste came anchoring for Dirty Water Media in 2016.

Then 2018 happened.

From "Gluck Gluck 9000" to "Gen-Z's Barbara Walters"

Alex and Sofia Franklyn launched "Call Her Daddy" from their New York apartment.

Downloads reportedly jumped from around 12,000 to 2 million within two months. Barstool Sports acquired the show almost immediately.

The early episodes were raw, raunchy, revolutionary. Alex and Sofia flipped the script on sex talk, giving women permission to be as bold and unapologetic as men had always been. The infamous "Gluck Gluck 9000" episode became legend.

This is classic Type 7 territory: pushing boundaries, making it look effortless, turning taboo into entertainment.

Then came the 2020 "Daddy Divorce"—the formative crisis that reveals how Cooper handles conflict.

During contract renegotiations with Barstool, Dave Portnoy offered both hosts a deal to gain ownership of the "Call Her Daddy" IP if they stayed one more year. Alex accepted. Sofia wanted more—reportedly $1 million per host plus increased merchandise revenue.

The public narrative, shaped by Portnoy and Alex, was clear: Sofia's greed killed the partnership.

Sofia's version, shared years later, is different. In a 2023 Rolling Stone interview, she said: "The betrayal piece was more upsetting than the financial piece. I go to bed resting my head on my pillow knowing I'm a good person, I have not done shady s--t or f--ked up s--t or backhanded s--t to get ahead financially."

The core allegation: Alex negotiated separately without telling her. "There's no way in hell I would speak to our boss without you, that would be f--king crazy, and I don't think that went both ways."

Sofia also claims she discovered Alex had a relationship with Portnoy she wasn't aware of: "I found out later [Cooper and Portnoy] 1,000 percent had this relationship that I wasn't aware of and not a part of."

When Alex later sold to Spotify for $60 million, Sofia called it vindication: "I think [Cooper] selling it for that amount was just a testament to what I was saying the entire time, which is what I was chastised for. I was called greedy beyond belief."

In her 2025 documentary, Alex's counter-narrative is simple: "It was the classic, 'You think you see something online and people genuinely believe you're like sisters, but our relationship was so awful.'"

Whatever the actual truth, the split shows the Type 7 pattern under stress: control the story, reframe the loss as liberation, keep moving. Sofia stayed silent and struggled. Alex went loud and leveled up.

By 2021, "Call Her Daddy" had left Barstool for Spotify. The show shifted from sex tips to celebrity interviews: Miley Cyrus, Hailey Bieber, Vice President Kamala Harris (October 2024). Rolling Stone dubbed Alex "Gen-Z's Barbara Walters."

The Art of Getting People to Talk

How does Alex get celebrities to reveal things they've never shared?

She's talked about the contrast with typical press interviews: "I have been interviewed before, and often it feels the interviewer is not listening or is trying to work their angle and agenda... the host is looking five inches to the right of my head and reading a teleprompter... It's very dehumanizing."

Her counter-approach: "I treat them as if we are sitting in my living room and we are getting to know each other."

Three techniques stand out:

  • Flow over structure. "Flow is much more important than following a structure I had in my head prior to sitting down for the interview." If something emotional shows up, she stays there.
  • Room for mess. Silence, oversharing, awkward details. She doesn't rush to clean it up.
  • Admitted nerves. For her first Miley Cyrus interview (2020): "I was like Alex, just get your name out and ask her at least five questions without, like, throwing up."

The technique works. When Alex asked Miley when she first realized she wasn't only attracted to men, Miley revealed she was attracted to women first. She hadn't shared that elsewhere.

The Hailey Bieber interview (2022) showed trust in action. Before addressing the Selena Gomez timeline controversy for the first and only time, Hailey reportedly told Alex: "I know I met you once, but I trust you and I really respect your platform." That episode sent "Call Her Daddy" to #1 on Spotify in nine countries.

For the Kamala Harris interview (October 2024), Alex had 40 minutes with no topics off limits. She asked: "People are so frustrated and just exhausted with politics in general. They don't feel incentivized to vote because they feel like politicians are essentially over-promising, under-delivering. Why should we trust you?"

The result: a show that often feels less like an interview and more like a friend confessing on a couch.

The Unwell Empire: 2024-2025 Expansion

By 2025, "Unwell" had evolved from a brand into a business stack: podcast network, production company, creative agency, beverage line.

The highlights: a three-year SiriusXM deal reported at up to $125 million (source), podcast acquisitions, a creative agency with Google as launch partner, Unwell Beverages (on track for eight-figure revenue by August 2025), and "Love Overboard," a Hulu dating show from Unwell Productions. Reports put her company at close to 100 employees.

The expansion reveals the psychology: when one lane peaks, build another. But the speed raises a question Type 7s eventually face. Is it growth, or is it running?

Behind the Scenes: Alex Cooper's Inner World

Chasing Fulfillment, Avoiding Pain

For Alex, the Type 7 core fear (being trapped with pain) shows up as relentless momentum.

Day-to-day, it looks like:

  • Boredom triggers a new "next." A new show format, a new product, a new lane.
  • Limits feel personal. "Anyone around me in business would say, Alex Cooper is tough to work for because she will not bend if it does not make sense for her and her brand and her audience," she told Marie Claire.
  • Conflict gets reframed into story. The Sofia split became an origin myth. The documentary turns trauma into content.
  • Slowing down feels risky. Rest can feel like stagnation.

Even her wellness approach reflects the pattern. She's joked that she doesn't wash her face and relies on toners instead. Small detail, but revealing: she resists rigid routines.

The Private Alex: Beyond the Microphone

She broadcasts intimate details to millions. But Alex maintains surprising boundaries around her actual personal life.

Her relationship with film producer Matt Kaplan (ACE Entertainment founder, known for "To All the Boys I've Loved Before") started with a pandemic Zoom call in July 2020. Fans would later know him only as "Mr. Sexy Zoom Man."

Their April 2024 wedding in Riviera Maya, Mexico marked a chapter Alex never expected.

What changed? Not just Kaplan. The dynamic.

"A lot of men in my past were really intimidated by my success. They tried to suppress what I was doing or make me feel bad about it. Matt has always been my biggest supporter."

A telling detail: Alex walked herself down the aisle. "I really rejected the concept of being walked down by a man to be handed to another man," she told Vogue. "My mom also walked herself down the aisle, so in a sense, we are creating our own tradition for the women in our family."

Family Plans: A Window into Type 7 Psychology

In a June 2025 podcast episode, Alex got vulnerable about delaying motherhood. She and Matt had planned to start trying in summer 2024. But after going off birth control (which she'd been on since age 16), she experienced physical struggles and career doubts.

"I just felt in my body that I want to grind at work and I want to be selfish a little longer. I wanna enjoy what I've worked so f***ing hard for."

The Type 7 tension in plain language: the desire for new experiences conflicting with the fear of losing freedom. Naming it out loud instead of sprinting past it is part of the growth.

Navigating Storms: Type 7 Under Pressure

When Cooper's brand feels threatened, the Type 7 stress pattern emerges: tighter control, sharper edges, less play. The 2020 "Daddy Divorce" era is the obvious example.

She's admitted as much: "The minute that I step onto the stage, I don't have control and that's about to drive me insane. I had 60-plus people working on a tour, but my name is on the [venue]. So if anything fails, it's on me."

She's gotten more comfortable delegating. But she still keeps "my hands on everything as much as humanly possible."

The Alix Earle Fallout (2025)

When lifestyle influencer Alix Earle signed with The Unwell Network in September 2023, it looked like a perfect pairing. At the TIME 100 event a month later, Alex praised her publicly: "She's a beast. She has a work ethic that I've never seen and I'm so proud of her."

By early 2025, the relationship had soured. Earle skipped Unwell's high-profile Super Bowl party in New Orleans while in town. Unwell's socials promoted her less. Earle's father mentioned on a podcast that he'd confronted someone about "a business situation" he "wasn't happy" about.

In March 2024, Earle announced: "I have to put a pause on podcasting right now for the foreseeable future. Don't really want to get into the details of it all, and I kind of can't get into the details of it all right now."

Alex's Instagram Story response: "Alix not being able to podcast has nothing to do with Unwell. Idk why she can't/what's going on. Unwell gave her everything back she owns her IP."

Earle later told WSJ the separation was "a little bit of a hot mess." When a fan asked her about Alex in August, she replied: "How much time do you have?"

The pattern echoes the Sofia dynamic. Type 7s can overcommit to partnerships when the energy is high, then struggle when friction appears. The instinct is to move forward rather than repair.

"Call Her Alex": Facing the Pain (2025)

In June 2025, Cooper premiered the two-part Hulu documentary "Call Her Alex" at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Directed by Ry Russo-Young, it traces her journey from a bullied middle-schooler in Pennsylvania to a media empire. It also centers on her time at Boston University.

Cooper alleges her soccer coach, Nancy Feldman (who coached at BU from 1995 to 2022), subjected her to years of escalating sexual harassment: inappropriate comments about her body and sex life, threats and benchings, attempts to be alone with her outside team settings. (Vanity Fair)

She also alleges that when she and her parents brought documentation to BU's athletic department in 2015, the department refused to review it.

Boston University said it takes the allegations seriously and retained outside counsel. (People)

In the documentary, Cooper says: "I didn't realize how much I had suppressed." She came forward after discovering "the abuse and trauma I had been subjected to at Boston University was still actively happening on that campus in 2025."

The response was divided. A contingent of 99 former BU women's soccer players and coaches signed a letter supporting Feldman, saying they "categorically never felt unsafe." One other former player has publicly come forward alleging abuse.

For a Type 7, the default move is to outrun pain with new experiences and positive reframing. The documentary looks like the opposite: sitting with it, documenting it publicly, aiming it outward toward accountability.

But here's the harder question: is publicly sharing trauma the same as processing it? Or is it another version of the Type 7 pattern, turning pain into content, momentum as a substitute for stillness?

The documentary received mixed reviews (6.3 on IMDb). Variety's Aramide Tinubu wrote that "while 'Call Her Alex' ties all the threads to Cooper's story in a neat bow, the woman and the brand she's built have already usurped this simplistic tale."

Maybe both readings are true. Real growth for a Type 7 isn't choosing between depth and momentum. It's learning to hold both. The documentary might be genuine reckoning and another product launch. Cooper might be processing and performing.

That tension is more interesting than a clean redemption arc.

The Cultural Impact: Why People Can't Get Enough

Creating a Movement, Not Just a Podcast

The "Daddy Gang" isn't just an audience. It's a culture with its own language.

The terminology: "The Fathers" (the original nickname for Alex and Sofia), "Single Father" (what Alex called herself after the split), "Gluck Gluck 9000" (the infamous technique that became a meme), "Unwell" / "We Are Unwell" (the rallying cry printed on merch).

Fans describe "Call Her Daddy" as "a personality trait, a lifestyle, a RELIGION." Wearing "Unwell" merch functions as identity. During the 2020 Barstool dispute, the Daddy Gang organized the #FreeTheFathers campaign.

The show has real scale. Spotify's 2024 Wrapped charts listed "Call Her Daddy" as the #2 podcast globally. (source)

As Alex describes it: "The Daddy Gang is a bunch of predominantly women that are excited to engage in a roller coaster where we don't know what happens next, but we're on the ride with Alex."

What keeps them loyal? The feeling of being inside the mess, not watching it from a distance. Alex built a communication style that leaves nothing hidden: failures, insecurities, ambition. That transparency creates parasocial intimacy at scale.

The Competitive Edge

Alex doesn't hide her ambition: "I want to be the biggest creator in the world. I'm a very competitive person."

But she's vocal about the double standards. After her Spotify deal: "No one said this about Joe Rogan. No one said this about the SmartLess podcast guys." She had "a lot of therapy sessions" because of comments like "She doesn't deserve that" or "She's so greedy."

On the Rogan comparison: "Does anybody say, 'Joe Rogan is the male Alex Cooper?' No," she told Jay Shetty's podcast. "We have similar numbers, we have really loyal audiences... it's frustrating that it is a de-qualifier."

On advocating for herself: "If I advocate firmly for myself, people will say 'Oh that Alex Cooper? Yeah, she's a bitch to work with' whereas [my husband] Matt could say it and they'd go, 'he's a real tough guy but he knows what he wants and that's cool.'"

She admits she doesn't "feel competitive" with Rogan: "Our content is so different." She's right. Comparing them misses the point. Alex dominates a completely different space.

The Critics: Is "Call Her Daddy" Actually Feminist?

Not everyone is on board. The show catches heat from feminist critics for consistent reasons:

  • Empowerment framing. Some argue the early brand sold sexual confidence in ways that still center male attention.
  • Barstool baggage. Until 2021, the show was owned by Barstool Sports.
  • Representation. The guest roster skews wealthy, white, and straight.
  • Politics friction. The 2024 Harris interview drew backlash from listeners who felt the questions were too soft or too partisan.

Cooper's counterpoint: she never positioned "Call Her Daddy" as a feminist manifesto. It's entertainment that tries to feel honest and, at its best, empowering on her terms.

Redefining Female Empowerment (On Her Terms)

Alex's biggest cultural impact is normalizing women's candid conversations about sex, relationships, and ambition.

Early episodes focused on sexual tips that some listeners found liberating and others found regressive. Today, "Call Her Daddy" spends more time on mental health, business, and trauma. The show grew up, and so did its audience.

Her deals also signaled something: women can build massive media businesses without sanding down their edges.

What's Next for Alex Cooper?

If the pattern continues:

  • More screen time. The docuseries and "Love Overboard" point toward video-first projects. The Golden Globes debut signals she's aiming for traditional media credibility.
  • More products, more agency deals. The empire keeps expanding.
  • The harder question: more depth? Type 7s mature by integrating Type 5 qualities: patience, expertise, sitting with discomfort. The motherhood delay, the documentary, the willingness to talk about what hurt suggest the shift is starting.

Whether the depth sticks, or gets converted into the next content cycle, is the open question.

The Type 7 Lesson

Alex Cooper's story makes sense through a Type 7 frame: build momentum, keep options open, turn chaos into storyline.

But the most revealing detail isn't the $125 million deals or the Golden Globes nomination. It's how she handled two women she was close to, Sofia and Alix, when relationship friction appeared. In both cases: forward motion, narrative control, minimal repair.

That's the Type 7 shadow at scale. The same energy that builds empires can burn bridges. The same instinct that turns pain into content can sidestep the slow work of sitting with it.

The question isn't whether Alex Cooper is successful. It's whether expansion can ever be enough, or whether the thing she's running from will eventually require her to stop.

Explore our questions section to better understand yourself and others through the Enneagram framework.

Disclaimer This analysis of Alex Cooper's Enneagram type is speculative, based on publicly available information, and may not reflect her actual personality type.