We take off the gloves!
Sofia FranklynThe “Daddy Issues” memoir comes out Tuesday, and the former “Call Her Daddy” co-host is already looking over her shoulder.
Sources who saw the top-secret tome before its publication tell us that the story opens with an anecdote involving Alex Cooperthe husband Matt Kaplan allegedly threatened to sue Franklyn when he found out she was working on a memoir.
The New York Times reported in a profile of Franklyn last week that: “Early in the book, Franklyn writes that Matt Kaplan, Cooper’s husband and the chief executive of his media company, learned of Franklyn’s memoir and called his agent, screaming and claiming that his story was false and that Cooper was going to sue. Franklyn said the threat resulted in no action.”
Representatives for Cooper and Kaplan’s Unwell company told the New York Times that Kaplan “never discussed the book’s claims or any intention to sue the author with (his lit agency) Verve.” The couple’s lawyer did not respond to us.
But Franklyn says she still worries that Cooper and Kaplan could retaliate after the book comes out.
“I’ve heard that some people mentioned in the book — some main characters in my book — are working very hard to discredit this story,” Franklyn revealed in an interview Monday with Dear Media’s “The Bossticks” podcast.
“I thought I was bulletproof,” Franklyn adds of the tome’s publication, “and then I started thinking, ‘How dirty are they going to play?'”
She then elaborated further, while speaking directly to Cooper and Kaplan via Laurent And Michael BossstickIt is Podcast: “I’m talking about Alex and Matt. Hi. And if you’re listening, hi. How dirty are they going to play it, where are they going to, like, go after people that I love? Who I don’t like. If my family, if my husband becomes collateral, that really scares me, and I thought I was going to go into this process being like two middle fingers in the air.”
But Franklyn also warns: “It’s going to be a lot harder to discredit me now because the public is smarter now. Like, people online, I’m not going to say that everyone, you know, understands, but people are slightly more aware of how the media works, how PR works, what headlines work, and what would that look like to discredit me?”
We also hear exclusively that Franklyn’s Tome is currently gaining traction as a hot property in Hollywood – as a potential film or TV project – being bought by Verve.
“There’s a ton of heat around,” says a knowledgeable source.
To this day, Simon & Schuster has kept the book under Fort Knox-level lock and key, as we previously reported.
We previously reported that Cooper — Franklyn’s former podcasting partner and best friend — had her minions call around to try to get details about Franklyn’s memoir before it was published.
Sources previously told Page Six Hollywood that Franklyn – who co-created the hit podcast “Call Her Daddy” with Cooper at Barstool Sports – wonders in the book if her former best friend had an affair with their former boss, Dave Portnoy. (It’s unclear if or when, and representatives have not previously commented on the alleged dalliance.)
“She’s in complete panic,” said a source who had seen a copy of “Daddy Issues” and was approached.
Cooper fell out with Franklyn in 2020, around the time she left the Barstool Sports fold following contentious contract negotiations.
Cooper walked away with full ownership of the series’ intellectual property, paving the way for her Unwell media empire.
She and Kaplan first met on a Zoom call in 2020 and began dating after a business dinner. Kaplan proposed in 2023, and they married the following year. The couple welcomed their first child last month.
Kaplan is a longtime Hollywood manager who earlier this year was caught up in bad press surrounding Cooper’s feud with another former podcasting associate, Alix Earle.
(An acquaintance previously called Kaplan a “leech and starf-ker” who only dated “rich blondes” in Page Six Hollywood’s coverage of the controversy when we reported in April that Cooper and his Unwell Network were the subject of a Bloomberg expose.)
A representative has not previously commented on our story on the Earle feud.
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