Call Her Daddy

About

Call Her Daddy is a sex and dating podcast hosted by Sofia Franklyn and Alexandra Cooper. After signing an exclusive contract to the Barstool Sports media network in 2018, the already popular podcast grew in notoriety. In 2020, the podcast hosts became embroiled in a contract dispute with Barstool, placing the podcast on indefinite pause.

History

On June 10th, 2018, Alexandra Cooper published a vlog entitled "Caller Her Daddy." In the post, she introduced her podcast "Call Her Daddy." The post received more than 174,000 views in less than two years (shown below).

On June 11th, the first episode of Call Her Daddy was released online. That day, hostAlexdra Cooper published a clip of the episode on Instagram. The video received more than 229,000 views and 1,600 likes in less than two years (shown below).

Barstool Sports Relationship

On September 26th, 2018, the Call Her Daddy Twitter account announced that the show had joined Barstool Sports. They posted a video of the two hosts entering the Barstool Sports offices that received more than 79,000 views (shown below).

CALL HER DADDY ft. _alexandracoop &amp; <a href="https://twitter.com/sofiafranklyn?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">sofiafranklyn signs with @barstoolsports 😈 https://t.co/COaQ41DSyi pic.twitter.com/DFqXZQeya9

— Call Her Daddy (@callherdaddy) September 26, 2018

On April 8th, 2020, "Call Her Daddy" released the episode entitled "Kesha… The End," which became the final episode preceding a dispute with Barstool Sports. The following week, they released a statement on social media that reads, "We are always 100% transparent with the Daddy Gang but legally we can't speak out yet. What we will say is… we will never fucking leave you Daddy Gang. The minute we can speak we well #FreeTheFathers" (shown below). the post received more than 119,000 likes in less than one month (shown below, left).^[6]

On May 17th, 2020, Barstool Sports founder and president released a podcast on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast feed calling the hosts "unprofessional, disloyal and greedy."^[5][7] During the podcast, Portnoy lays the blame for the behind-the-scenes turmoil on HBO sports executive and Sofia Franklyn's boyfriend Peter Nelson, whom he refers to a "suitman." The following day, he posted "Call Her Daddy" branded merchandise with that featured the phrase "cancel suitman" (shown below, right).

Following the podcast, Franklyn posted an Instagram Story post offering a statement on the rumors. In the post, she said that the hosts wanted to explore options, saying that she wished that they had handled things differently. She also accuses Alexandra of making deals about the podcast without her knowledge (mirror below).

Portnoy responded to the video. In the post, he refuted Franklyn's response, saying that she said "nothing," avoided mentioning "suitman" and that she and her team were preparing for a lawsuit. The post received more than 1.34 million views, 24,000 likes and 1,200 retweets.

Emergency Press Conference – Sofia Speaks pic.twitter.com/SztDO9jpvI

— Call Her Daddy (@callherdaddy) May 19, 2020

Reception

Many have commented on the explicit and "raunchy" content of "Call Her Daddy." The New York Post^[1] wrote in 2018:

Virtually nothing is off-limits for the two roommates (except Cooper’s former relationship with Mets pitcher Noah Syndergaard) on their weekly show -- which spans the conversational gamut from sex acts like the “gluck gluck 9000” to them listening to each other get it on from the next room.

Following their joining Barstool Sports, their listenership jumped from "12,000 to 2 million downloads in two months."^[2]

Fandom

Daddy Gang

Fans of "Call Her Daddy" refer to themselves as "Daddy Gang."

#FreeTheFathers

Following the show's dispute with Barstool Sports, fans of the series began tweeting their support of the "Fathers," the nickname given to the hosts by fans. The #FreeTheFathers campaign was acknowledged by the hosts on April 21st, 2020 in a tweet that received more than 13,000 likes and 1,600 retweets in less than one month (shown below, left).^[3]

Others posted using the hashtag on Instagram^[4] (examples below, center and right).

Search Interest

External References