Alex Cooper – Pass the Mic

The thing about expanding your podcast empire to global domination? There's not a single damn moment of calm. Luckily, Alex Cooper likes it that way.

- By Jessica Giles. Photographs by Amber Asaly

Not to say it's all work and no play, the business of taking over the world. When you're Alex Cooper, play might even be the point. There are movie premiere parties in NYC where you invite literally everyone on Instagram to join you at the bar (and they do, clicking like giddy magnets into a line around the block; jumping to take shots with you and Alix Earle; crowding in around you as the velvet rope to the VIP section falls to the floor¹). Glitzy trips to the South of France to attend fancy dinners with fellow boldface names. Hilarious sexual hijinks with your hot fiancé slash business partner that you happily tell millions of people about.³ In short, this woman is fun, and that's part of her power.

But it's hard to build a legitimate brand around your personality, despite how much of a blast the 29-year-old Call Her Daddy host makes it seem. Hard because the fun you're so visible for suggests that you're not also running around behind the scenes leading marathon meetings with lawyers about intellectual property or plotting out strategic pivots to your distribution strategy or pulling all-nighters to finesse your wildly successful core product, which is successful because of how carefully you tend to every last detail. Hard because those who look too quickly could miss the fact that you're not only the loud voice but also the savvy brain, coming up with all the genius ideas that make the whole thing move.