Inside the Unwell Network: Accusations Shadow Alex Cooper's Growing Empire

When Alex Cooper took control of her own destiny—buying out her stake in“Call Her Daddy”and launching The Unwell Network in 2023—it looked like a success story in the making. A young podcaster, building her own media company. A partnership with her now-husband Matt Kaplan, whom she married in 2024. The kind of growth narrative that gets celebrated in digital media circles.

But a Friday, June 12 report from Vanity Fair paints a sharply different picture of what’s happening behind closed doors at Unwell. Multiple anonymous current and former employees told the publication that Matt Kaplan has fostered what they describe as a toxic work environment—one where he allegedly berates young female staffers over minor mistakes, makes inappropriate comments about their bodies and sex lives, and has reduced employees to tears. One source claimed to see Kaplan screaming“the nastiest things”while Cooper stood by without defending anyone.

The specifics are damning. Former employees allege Kaplan openly asked staffers“Who did you have sex with this weekend?”and made comments categorizing colleagues as“hot”versus overweight. Another worker said they would“cry every day.”Yet another recalled Kaplan as“definitely a flirty guy”but couldn’t say they felt uncomfortable—a telling variance in experience that hints at an unpredictable, inconsistent environment.

Here’s the wrinkle: Vanity Fair didn’t interview any Unwell staffer on the record. A source close to Cooper pushes back hard, claiming the reporter“has a clear agenda”and ignored positive testimonials about Kaplan, Alex, and the company itself. It’s the kind of he-said-she-said that leaves room for interpretation—but it also raises questions about what’s actually happening inside a company Cooper has positioned as women-led.

Cooper herself has emphasized Unwell’s female-forward culture.“Matt works with all women,”she said on a March episode of the“Burnouts”podcast, describing the office as a sea of women with Kaplan in the middle. She credited her team’s flexibility as the company scaled from startup to something bigger. But if the Vanity Fair allegations hold weight, that framing feels incomplete at best, misleading at worst.

Neither Cooper nor Kaplan has publicly addressed the accusations. They’re currently expecting their first baby, and Unwell continues to operate. The question now isn’t just whether these claims are true—it’s what happens to the narrative around a company built on the back of a podcaster’s independence when that independence is shadowed by allegations of the kind of workplace toxicity she might once have called out herself.