‘Name Her Daddy’ host Alex Cooper claims school soccer coach sexually harassed her
Widespread podcaster Alex Cooper claims in a brand new docuseries that she was sexually harassed by her soccer coach throughout her time taking part in the game at Boston College.
“Name Her Alex,” which premiered on the Tribeca Movie Competition on Sunday and debuts on Hulu on Tuesday, chronicles the media determine’s ascent to stardom, detailing her early childhood in Pennsylvania and her journey to change into one of the crucial influential podcasters.
Within the two-part docuseries, which NBC Information considered screeners of, the “Name Her Daddy” host alleges that her former coach Nancy Feldman “fixated” on her, “desirous to know who I used to be relationship … making feedback on my physique, and all the time desirous to be alone with me.”
Cooper performed on the staff from 2013-2015, based on the B.U. ladies’s soccer web site. Feldman, who retired in 2022 after 27 years on the college, made feedback about her look and her legs, Cooper alleges, and put her hand on Cooper’s thigh. She stated Feldman additionally as soon as questioned her a couple of date, asking if she had intercourse the night time earlier than.
“I felt so deeply uncomfortable,” she says within the docuseries, including that she was attending B.U. on a full-tuition scholarship and felt if she “didn’t comply with” Feldman’s guidelines, she’d be “gone.”
Within the docuseries, Cooper’s mother says the household reached out to a lawyer who suggested them to sue Feldman, however warned litigation might take years. Cooper stated her dad and mom reached out to B.U. to report the claims of sexual harassment. Her mother stated she offered notes to B.U. that she took from her calls with Cooper over time during which her daughter described the alleged incidents. The notes have been proven within the docuseries.
Cooper claims she advised B.U. she wished to play her senior yr however she couldn’t play for Feldman. The college, she alleges, stated they advised her they would not be conducting an investigation and stated they wouldn’t hearth Feldman. They stated Cooper might preserve her scholarship even when she didn’t play her senior yr.
“Inside 5 minutes, that they had totally dismissed every part I had been via,” Cooper stated.
Feldman and a consultant for Boston College didn’t reply to requests for remark made on Monday. A spokesperson for Cooper stated she isn’t commenting additional.
The docuseries doesn’t embrace a press release from the college or from Feldman.
Throughout a Q&A with director Ry Russo-Younger after the Tribeca screening, Cooper mirrored on her determination to talk out 10 years after the alleged harassment.
Within the years since she graduated, Cooper, now 30, has constructed a media empire. Her tens of millions of listeners, nicknamed the “Daddy Gang,” contemplate her the go-to voice on relationships, relationship and life in your 20s and 30s. Along with her podcast, one of the crucial listened to on Spotify, she launched the Unwell Community, a subsidiary of the media firm Trending, which she based together with her now-husband, Matt Kaplan, and a drink model.
She stated that whereas filming the documentary venture she returned to B.U.’s campus for the primary time, and she received emotional.
“At this level within the filming course of, I used to be undecided I wished to speak about this expertise,” she stated in the course of the Q&A, based on Folks, which additionally shared a clip of the dialog on Instagram.
“The minute I stepped again on that area, I felt so small,” Cooper stated. “I simply felt like I used to be 18 years outdated once more, and I used to be in a state of affairs with somebody able of energy who abused their energy, and I felt like I wasn’t the ‘Name Her Daddy’ lady. I wasn’t somebody who had cash and affect or no matter. I used to be simply one other lady who skilled harassment on a stage that modified my life ceaselessly and took away the factor I beloved essentially the most.”
That is the primary time Cooper has opened up in regards to the allegations, although she has alluded to having a “traumatic expertise” with a coach throughout her time on the staff previously. In a 2023 interview with Cosmopolitan journal, she described a “particular factor” with out mentioning what had occurred, saying “it’s so private to me and it took such a toll on my psychological well being.”
She stated reconnecting with individuals she performed soccer with, “who have been round when issues have been occurring,” had been “fairly cathartic” for her.
“I met up with considered one of my teammates in Santa Monica who I hadn’t seen since we graduated — we didn’t even say hello, we simply each began crying,” she stated. “There’s one other lady that went via it with me, and we lastly noticed one another not too long ago, and it’s simply wild to speak about it collectively. Connecting with these different ladies with these scars, that’s step one to me truly being like, “Oh my god, I’m feeling higher.”