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Call Her Daddy’s Alex Cooper is speaking to millennials about sex and mental health

Alex Cooper made a name for herself as one half of Call Her Daddy — a female podcasting duo that launched a salacious sex-driven podcast at Barstool Sports in 2018. But just a few years later, the 26-year-old is being praised as one of the biggest in the podcasting business and she is determined to take her brand to the next level. For her, this means becoming more vulnerable with her audience and showing up more authentically in an effort to empower listeners to take control of their relationships — both with others and themselves.

Video Transcript

ALEX COOPER: For so long, therapy has been a topic that it's, like, what's wrong with you? Why are you in therapy? And I'm trying to normalize it in an extreme way, kind of like I used to do with sex. But it's like, no, now the question is, what's wrong with you if you're not in therapy?

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KERRY JUSTICH: Today I'm sitting down with Alex Cooper, the host and mastermind behind one of the biggest comedy sex podcasts, now exclusively on Spotify, "Call Her Daddy". You've discussed a lot about shifting towards conversations about mental health. Can you tell me a little bit about when you decided to make that shift and why you felt it was the next move for the Daddy Gang?

ALEX COOPER: In the beginning of the inception of "Call Her Daddy", very strategically marketing wise I was presenting my looks and valley girl voice. And I knew how to give some amazing tips in the bedroom. I started to feel a little drained of, like, how many more times can I sit and talk about just sex? Then as the transition took over and I was now a solo host, therapy, that was the main relationship I was in, in my life, was between me and my therapist.

And so I started to implement, like, maybe I didn't have sex that week. And that's OK. I don't need to talk about sex. Like, I can talk about what actually happened, which is therapy.

I had started with one of the most intimate topics with them and they trusted me. And so then to go from sex to therapy, I think I was fortunate that my listeners trust me and my voice. And I was able to bridge a topic that may be still considered sort of taboo, just like sex was.

KERRY JUSTICH: What was your game plan in terms of communicating with people, what therapy and mental health has to do with relationships and sex?

ALEX COOPER: With my history of having a mother that is a psychologist and growing up in a home where EQ and mental health was like a non-starter. It was a prerequisite to be in my family. It's like, you need to work on yourself. I think I started to really feel like in my own when I would be in therapy sessions.

And I felt like I had a pretty good sense of self and I wanted to share that with others. It doesn't make me uncomfortable to talk about these things, because it's life and we're all going through it. I can see how interested people are in this and how scared they are to admit it. Let me be the first one openly to be like, I'm in therapy.

And we've all got our [BLEEP]. So like, it's fine to admit that. And if anything, it's sexier and it's more appealing, in my opinion, in dating and life if you are working on yourself constantly.

KERRY JUSTICH: I know that a lot of content creators have been discussing the concept of burnout. What does your self care look like when you're fully stepping away from the microphone, the camera?

ALEX COOPER: One time last year I took three weeks off. And I said, I will never do that again. In the creative space, like, to completely turn your brain off, it is so hard to get back into it. But when you're not feeling good, I have found, for me, it's not good to fully disconnect. I have such amazing childhood best friends that I've kept so close to me and hanging out with people I'm close with just helps me just relax in general.

KERRY JUSTICH: What would you say to people who say that this isn't a podcast that's empowering women?

ALEX COOPER: At the beginning of "Call Her Daddy", I understood that, like, men were so turned off by the feminist movement. We needed in the beginning to sort of bridge the gap. So we had an opportunity for everyone to listen and not to completely shut off aside that I wanted to be a part of the conversation.

Because in order for it to get better, both sides need to come to the table. Now I feel like I've been able to sort of get back to center of, like, listen, I don't hate men, but what I do hate is the concept of us not being equal. Because at the end of the day, if you want to go toe to toe, women are superior.

You're here because of us. I'm just speaking as a woman that's now sitting at the table with the big boys, and I'm ready to be taken seriously and also respected, just as the men are. When my deal came out, it was biggest female podcast. I called my PR people and I said, get it out of there.

It's one of the biggest podcast deals. It would never say, "one of the biggest male podcast deals". I love having this platform so that I can speak on it and hopefully empower women to feel the same when they walk into a room.

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