Sofia Franklyn’s book ‘Daddy Issues’ opens with alleged legal threat from Alex Cooper’s husband: sources

The gloves are off!

Sofia Franklyn’s memoir “Daddy Issues” drops Tuesday, and the former “Call Her Daddy” co-host is already looking over her shoulder.

Sources who’ve seen the top-secret tome prior to publication tell us that the tell-all opens with an anecdote involving Alex Cooper’s husband Matt Kaplan allegedly threatening to sue Franklyn when he finds out she’s working on a memoir.

The New York Times reported in a profile of Franklyn last week that, “At the opening of the book, Franklyn writes that Matt Kaplan, Cooper’s husband and the chief executive of her media company, learned about Franklyn’s memoir and called her agent screaming and claiming that her story was false and that Cooper would sue. Franklyn said nothing further came of the threat.”

Reps from Cooper and Kaplan’s company, Unwell, told The New York Times that Kaplan, “never discussed the book’s claims or any intent to sue the author with [her lit agency] Verve.” A lawyer for the couple did not get back to us.

But Franklyn says she’s still worried that Cooper and Kaplan may retaliate after the book is out.

“I have 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 on Monday with Dear Media’s “The Bossticks” podcast.

“I thought I was bulletproof,” Franklyn adds of the publishing the tome, “and then I started to think, ‘How dirty are they gonna play?’”

She then further clarified, while addressing Cooper and Kaplan directly via Lauren and Michael Bosstick‘s podcast: “I’m talking about Alex and Matt. Hi. And if you’re listening, hi. How dirty are they gonna play it, where are they gonna, like, go after people I love? That I do not like. If my family, if my husband becomes collateral, that actually scares me, and I thought I was gonna go into this process being like two middle fingers in the air.”

But Franklyn also warns, “It’s gonna be a lot harder to discredit me now because the audience is smarter now. Like, people online, I’m not gonna say everyone, you know, is gets it, but people are slightly more aware of how media, PR, headlines work, and what would that look like to discredit me?

We also exclusively hear that Franklyn’s tome is currently gaining traction as a hot property in Hollywood — as a potential film or TV project — that’s being shopped by Verve.

“There’s a ton of heat surrounding it,” says a knowledgeable source.

To date, Simon & Schuster has kept the book under Fort Knox-level lock and key, we previously reported.

We previously reported that Cooper — Franklyn’s onetime podcasting partner and BFF — has had her minions calling around trying to get any details about Franklyn’s memoir ahead of its release.

Sources previously told Page Six Hollywood that Franklyn — who co-created the hit podcast “Call Her Daddy” with Cooper at Barstool Sports — questions in the book whether her one-time BFF had a fling with their former boss, Dave Portnoy. (It’s not clear if or when, and reps did not previously comment on the alleged dalliance.)

“She’s in full-on panic mode,” said a source who’d seen a copy of “Daddy Issues” and was approached. 

Cooper fell out with Franklyn in 2020, around the time she exited the Barstool Sports fold following contentious contract negotiations.

Cooper walked away with full ownership of the show’s intellectual property — paving the way for her Unwell media empire.

She and Kaplan first met on a Zoom call in 2020 and started dating after a business dinner. Kaplan proposed in 2023, and they tied the knot the following year. The couple welcomed their first child last month.

Kaplan is a longtime Hollywood manager who earlier this year got caught up in the bad press surrounding the feud between Cooper and another former podcasting associate, Alix Earle.

(One acquaintance previously called Kaplan a “leech and starf–ker” who only dates “rich blondes” in Page Six Hollywood’s coverage of the controversy when we reported in April that Cooper and her Unwell Network were the subject of a Bloomberg exposé.)

A rep did not previously comment on our story on the Earle feud.