The Diary of a CEOAlex Cooper: The Truth I Never Planned to Share...
CHAPTERS
- 0:00 – 3:20
Intro, Gratitude, And Setting The Stage
Steven Bartlett opens by thanking his audience for growing The Diary Of A CEO and frames the ambition to scale the show globally. He introduces Alex Cooper and her extraordinary success with Call Her Daddy, teasing that she’ll reveal truths she’s never shared before.
- •Steven reflects on the show’s growth to a 30-person team fueled by subscribers and viewers.
- •He emphasizes plans to scale globally and diversify guest selection.
- •Audience support (subscribes, likes, comments) is directly tied to the show’s sustainability.
- •Alex Cooper is introduced against the backdrop of her show being the most listened-to female podcast in the world.
- 3:20 – 10:00
Family Origins: Producer Father, Psychologist Mother
Alex describes formative childhood experiences watching her father produce NHL games and living with a psychologist mother who prioritized emotional literacy. These influences gave her a clear early passion for production and a deep focus on emotional connection.
- •Watching her dad direct live sports in an arena made her want to produce and direct from a young age.
- •Her father’s enthusiasm for work modeled the idea that passion can be a career.
- •Her mother’s psychology background made feelings and emotional check-ins a constant in their home.
- •She resisted her mom’s probing as a teen but now credits her as crucial for her personal development and EQ.
- 10:00 – 25:00
Bullying, Isolation, And The Birth Of A Creator
Alex opens up about harsh bullying based on her appearance, which made school unbearable and home a protected creative refuge. She reveals suicidal thoughts captured in an old journal and how making films in her basement “saved her life.”
- •She hid bullying from her parents to avoid contaminating home—her “safe place”—with school pain.
- •Bullying centered on her appearance (awkward phase, cystic acne) during highly approval‑sensitive years.
- •She found a journal where she wrote that if she killed herself, bullies might finally understand the impact of their words.
- •Creating videos and playing confident characters like Miranda Priestly gave her a temporary sense of power and purpose.
- •She and a longtime friend later realized they were both being bullied but suffered in silence separately.
- 25:00 – 40:00
Therapy, Armor, And Finally Telling The Truth
Alex recounts starting therapy in her mid‑20s amid growing tensions with her co-host, initially maintaining a façade even with her therapist. A direct confrontation from the therapist and her own audience confession broke open years of emotional armor from bullying.
- •She began therapy because her mom refused to be both parent and therapist and urged her to get help.
- •Initially Alex performed “I’m fine” in sessions, until her therapist challenged her honesty and emotional distance.
- •She paradoxically told her audience she’d been bullied before fully telling her therapist.
- •Therapy helped her see how bullying fueled people‑pleasing, self‑hatred, closed posture, and fear of romantic vulnerability.
- •Her therapist noted Alex is good at setting boundaries but bad at maintaining them.
- 40:00 – 55:00
The Co‑Host Fallout And Learning To Leave
Bartlett probes the final year with Alex’s Call Her Daddy co-host, revealing a codependent, unhealthy environment masked by public success. Alex reflects on ignoring her own needs, the media’s victim–villain framing, and the painful choice not to publicly correct the record.
- •She lived and worked with her co-host while their relationship and business deteriorated behind the scenes.
- •Alex prioritized the show over her mental health, playing fixer for issues like substance use and attendance.
- •She describes the dynamic as “codependent” and psychologically and physically draining.
- •The public fallout forced a narrative with a victim and a villain; Alex became the villain online.
- •She chose not to expose private details despite the urge to defend herself, relying on the knowledge that she and those close to her knew the truth.
- •Her key retrospective advice: it’s okay to leave when you’re compromising morals, sanity, or safety.
- 55:00 – 1:10:00
Business Lessons: Envisioning Scale, Contracts, And Spotify
Alex and Steven dissect the business side of Call Her Daddy—from accidental co-founder alignment failures to the enormous Spotify deal. She explains how painful early mistakes sharpened her approach to ownership, IP, and keeping her team intentionally lean.
- •The show exploded to #2 under Joe Rogan within three episodes at Barstool, with zero long‑term planning.
- •Alex and her co-host hardly knew each other’s goals or values; they were “drinking buddies,” not deliberate partners.
- •She now advises creators to assume their project could be huge and structure contracts, equity, IP, and trademarks accordingly.
- •Her second major deal (Spotify) was negotiated with far more rigor around control, trademarks, and team.
- •Despite resources, her daily working team is just one or two people; she prefers a small, hands‑on creative unit.
- •The large reported Spotify figure validated the brand she built but didn’t materially change her day‑to‑day work ethic or lifestyle.
- 1:10:00 – 1:25:00
People‑Pleasing, Firing, And The Cost Of Being The Face And The Boss
As both CEO and star of her own company, Alex explains the emotional difficulty of making hard business calls while fearing public backlash. She also reflects on how people‑pleasing led her to sustain unsustainable dynamics, on‑air and behind the scenes.
- •She juggles being talent, executive producer, and CEO, which creates conflicting roles in hiring, feedback, and firing.
- •People‑pleasing made her keep underperforming employees because she feared they’d publicly trash her.
- •Her therapist bluntly told her she must fire people who don’t do their jobs, regardless of potential online fallout.
- •This mirrors earlier patterns where she over‑functioned in the partnership (getting people out of bed, managing substances) to keep the show alive.
- •She is now more deliberate about who is “allowed to touch the product,” emphasizing alignment and performance over likability.
- 1:25:00 – 1:40:00
Creator Economy Pressure: Exploitation, Escalation, And Pivoting To Interviews
Alex names the psychological cost of using her life as material and the algorithmic reward for ever‑more extreme content. Feeling trapped in a weekly one‑woman performance cycle, she shifted into interviews to preserve her mental health and creative joy.
- •Four years of hyper‑personal storytelling on sex, breakups, and trauma created an expectation to constantly “one‑up” herself.
- •The early Call Her Daddy era rewarded her for saying ever‑wilder things; she now cringes at some past clips.
- •Audiences cheer as you approach the moral line but condemn you when you cross it, despite having encouraged escalation.
- •She acknowledges this as a “very fucked up” industry that rewards chaos but punishes perceived excess.
- •Solo weekly hours of content pushed her to manufacture experiences just to have something to talk about.
- •Switching into long‑form interviews recentered her on what she genuinely loves: deep, connective conversations rather than constant self‑exposure.
- 1:40:00 – 1:55:00
Audience Obsession And The Secret Of Call Her Daddy’s Scale
Responding to why Call Her Daddy is uniquely massive among millions of podcasts, Alex points to an unusually intimate relationship with her listeners and her obsessive commitment to the craft. She positions herself as both needing and fiercely protecting the Daddy Gang.
- •She calls it the most listened-to female podcast in the world, with hundreds of millions of monthly streams.
- •The show originally grew by breaking taboos around women talking candidly about sex, building huge trust.
- •Listeners confide experiences like sexual abuse or leaving toxic relationships within seconds of meeting her in public.
- •Alex refuses deals, formats, and content ideas that don’t feel organic to her audience, even when highly lucrative.
- •She has never published an episode she isn’t proud of; many solo episodes have been recorded then scrapped.
- •Her own obsessive love for producing, editing, and innovating each week (not just showing up to talk) drives the show’s evolution.
- 1:55:00 – 2:20:00
Love, Gender Dynamics, And Choosing The Right Partner
Alex explores how her massive success influences dating and how she finally found a partner who embraces, rather than resents, her ambition. She also clarifies her definition of a ‘successful’ partner and describes the painful but ultimately rewarding path to real love.
- •Early in Call Her Daddy, many men felt insecure dating her—exacerbated by her candid on‑air debriefs.
- •She sees herself both as the powerful Call Her Daddy host and the insecure, bullied girl from Pennsylvania, and wants partners to understand both.
- •Her current partner is successful in his own right and explicitly finds her passion “the hottest thing” about her.
- •He tells her she can quit tomorrow and he’d love her the same, which gives her a sense of safety and non‑conditional support.
- •For Alex, partner “success” is about passion and purpose, not income; she needs someone driven by something they care deeply about.
- •Experiencing deep love has included painful early misalignments and grief, but she calls it a pain she ‘enjoys’ because of the joy on the other side.
- 2:20:00 – 2:30:00
Boundaries, Ending Friendships, And Practicing Difficult Conversations
Prompted by Steven’s question cards, Alex reveals she recently ended a toxic friendship and is learning to maintain, not just declare, boundaries. She describes rehearsing the confrontation and feeling deeply proud of finally acting in line with her own well‑being.
- •She identifies a specific relationship that was consistently bringing negativity and anxiety into her life.
- •Her therapist observes Alex is great at announcing boundaries but quickly abandons them under discomfort or guilt.
- •After significant internal debate and rehearsal, she had a clear but graceful conversation to end the friendship.
- •This marks a tangible step in her evolution away from reflexive people‑pleasing toward self‑protection.
- •She frames difficult conversations as necessary to remove chronic drains on happiness, not as cruelty.
- 2:30:00 – 2:44:20
Future Plans: Beyond Podcasting Into Production And Business
Alex hints at an imminent business launch that will expand the Call Her Daddy universe into new formats and products. She explains that her original dream was to produce and direct, and she now wants to build a broader media and production footprint staying true to her brand.
- •She teases a major venture launching within a month, designed to “elevate and expand” Call Her Daddy.
- •The new initiative will stay firmly in her lane—no random sell‑out products like water or irrelevant merch.
- •Directionally, she wants to produce and direct more than “just” weekly podcasts, possibly building a studio or media company.
- •She emphasizes using a clear compass (what she wants and what the audience wants) while seeking help from expert partners.
- •Alex has started taking more meetings, despite hating them, because they surface ideas and blind spots she wouldn’t find alone.
- •She encourages others not to keep ideas overly secretive; conversations can clarify, not steal, your unique execution.
- 2:44:20 – 2:56:40
Vulnerability, Fear Of Public Life, And A Rare Admission
In response to a card asking for something she’s never told anyone, Alex admits that the public nature of her career genuinely scares her. She wrestles with whether she chose the right kind of visibility and how unnatural it is to have millions scrutinizing her every week.
- •She often comes across as supremely confident, but privately finds the scale and permanence of her public exposure frightening.
- •She questions whether she might have been happier remaining behind the camera as a producer rather than an on‑air personality.
- •There’s no clear off‑ramp: the weekly obligation to deliver content is unrelenting and psychologically intense.
- •She experiences late‑night spirals about audience perception, authenticity, and whether she has ‘taken it too far.’
- •Despite this, she reiterates her love for the work and her current overall happiness, acknowledging both thrill and fear coexist.
- 2:56:40
Closing Reflections And Mutual Appreciation
Steven acknowledges the brilliance and cost of Alex’s obsession with her craft, while she praises his interviewing style for enabling such an honest conversation. They close by hinting again at her future ventures and by contextualizing the conversation as unusually candid, even for her.
- •Steven frames Alex’s 2 a.m. obsessiveness as the necessary cost of creative excellence, while also recognizing its toll.
- •He affirms that her principles of audience-first content and vulnerability will translate to her future productions.
- •Alex calls this one of the most honest on‑camera conversations she’s had, crediting Steven’s listening and safety.
- •Both underline that grounded relationships, self‑awareness, and boundaries are as important as numbers and deals in a career like hers.
