Alex Cooper’s Unwell media company is rife with “unprofessional and caustic” behavior that starts at the very top, Vanity Fair alleged in a lengthy exposé. The outlet spoke to 40 sources, 30 of whom are former or current employees, about interactions with Cooper and her husband Matt Kaplan.
Per Vanity Fair, the bulk of the sources the outlet spoke to are in their early 20s, and working for Unwell, home of Cooper’s popular “Call Her Daddy” podcast, is their first job (or one of their earliest).
Vanity Fair has spoken to more than 40 sources, at least 30 of whom are current or former Unwell employees—most of them women in their 20s—about their experiences with Alex Cooper and her husband, Matt Kaplan, the company’s cofounder and co-CEO. Where’s the line between… pic.twitter.com/AzgVj9Aiz5
— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) June 12, 2026
“These are people who grew up on ‘Call Her Daddy’ and for whom Cooper is not just a boss but a celebrity — she’s the reason many of them applied in the first place,” the article, published Friday, states.
But these days, most of the decisions at Unwell are made by Cooper’s husband, and his “volatile mix of unprofessional and caustic” style of leadership appears to be in direct opposition to the brand’s emphasis on supporting women.
Some of the women told Vanity Fair that Kaplan called some employees “stupid” or “retarded,” and he’s also accused of threatening to negatively impact their careers. Plenty were also worried the interviewer was some kind of plant by Kaplan and Cooper and meant to identify detractors.
Other employees also pointed to uncomfortable interactions with chief brand officer T.J. Marchetti, the former Disney and Awesomeness TV executive who is one of a small number of men who work at Unwell.
“Several describe feeling uncomfortable with how flirty he was with the young female fans who came to Unwell events. Another still recalls Marchetti telling her to take down photos from Unwell’s Instagram account of young fans who, she recalls him saying, ‘were not attractive enough.’”
“[Kaplan] creates the most toxic work environment that I’ve ever seen,” said one former freelancer. A former employee also said, “Matt will scream the worst things and say the nastiest things to you, and Alex will be there next to him, not defending anyone.”
As another put it, despite the female-forward public-facing perception of the company, “what I found is, behind the scenes, there’s this man, her husband, running around wreaking havoc and making people cry, cower [in] fear.”
Unwell did not immediately respond Saturday to a request for comment.
Cooper is currently pregnant with the pair’s first child, a move that was side-eyed by her former boss Dave Portnoy. “Alex Cooper pregnant!” he said in a video shared on TikTok. “What a trump card. Because you are off-limits. Once you’re pregnant, all the haters gotta zip it.” (It’s worth noting Portnoy is not without his own controversy, and his professional relationship with Cooper ended in 2021 when she left Barstool.)
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