'Call Her Daddy' host Alex Cooper recalls 'psychotic game' of sexual harassment

USA Today

3 days ago

'Call Her Daddy' host Alex Cooper recalls 'psychotic game' of sexual harassment
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Alex Cooper, celebrated for her let's-go-there honesty on her chart-topping podcast "Call Her Daddy," is pulling back the curtain even further.
The two-part Hulu docuseries 'Call Her Alex' (streaming June 10) captures the relentless drive that led Cooper, 30, to land a lucrative SiriusXM deal (reportedly worth up to $125 million). But it also reveals the low points of her life. Growing up, boys taunted Cooper, a natural redhead. Cruel kids made fun of her hair and thin frame. 'You're disgusting,' she says they taunted her. 'No one wants to touch you.'
'I hated myself,' Cooper adds. School 'was such hell,' but at home she poured her creativity into skits that she starred in, filmed and edited.
Cooper started "Call Her Daddy" in 2018 with her then-roommate Sofia Franklyn, who left the podcast in 2020.
'People genuinely believed we were like sisters," Cooper said. "But our relationship was so awful.'
Cooper also addresses a subject she rarely has: Claims of being sexually harassed by Boston University soccer coach Nancy Feldman as a member of the team in college.
Boston University has not respond to USA TODAY's request for comment. Feldman could not be reached, and the documentary, directed by Ry Russo-Young, did not include a statement from the university or its former coach. No charges were ever filed.
Alex Cooper remembers Boston University soccer coach Nancy Feldman 'really starting to fixate on me'
Cooper, who loved playing soccer, was on the collegiate team at Boston University. She says she attended the school on a full scholarship to play for Feldman.
Cooper says during her sophomore year, she noticed Feldman 'really starting to fixate on me, way more than any other teammate of mine. And it was confusing,' Cooper says, as 'it was all based in her wanting to know who I was dating, her making comments about my body and her always wanting to be alone with me.'
Feldman would comment on her legs, Cooper says in the docuseries, and would put her hand on her thigh. Cooper says that once, Feldman found out she had been brought to campus by someone she was seeing. The coach asked her during a private meeting if she had had sex the previous night, and discouraged Cooper from sleeping off campus. 'I didn't know what to do,' Cooper says, 'and every time I tried to resist her, she would say there could be consequences, and there were.'
'It was this psychotic game of, 'You want to play? Tell me about your sex life,'' Cooper alleges. ''I have to drive you to your night class. Get in the car with me alone.''
Alex Cooper says sexual harassment claims were 'entirely dismissed' without an investigation
Cooper says she confided in her mother, Laurie Cooper, who took notes on their conversations about the coach's behavior. Laurie, interviewed for the docuseries, says lawyers identified Feldman's behavior as sexual harassment.
Alex Cooper says she and her parents met with the dean of athletics, whom her parents told that Cooper had been sexually harassed by Feldman for three years on campus.
Cooper says she was then asked by staff, 'What do you want?' They wouldn't even look at Laurie's collection of Cooper's complaints. Cooper says the university refused to fire Feldman, but told Cooper she could keep her scholarship.
There was 'no investigation,' Cooper says. 'Within five minutes, they had entirely dismissed everything I had been through. I got into the car with my parents and when the door shut, I immediately broke down and I just started sobbing.' (Feldman retired from BU in 2022.)
Cooper returned to Boston University for the first time for 'Call Her Alex.' She said she cried as she looked at the field and reflected on what had been stripped from her.
'When I look back at that time in my life, I was scared, hopeless,' Cooper says. 'I had no resources and no options, and the minute I left that campus I was so determined to find a way where no one could ever silence me again.'