Noah Syndergaard Hits Back at Ex Alex Cooper's Podcast Jab

When you’re a professional athlete, the baggage of your dating history can follow you into the public eye—whether you want it to or not. That’s the reality Noah Syndergaard faced recently when he appeared on the Tomi Lahren Is Fearless podcast on Tuesday, May 12, and addressed comments his ex, Alex Cooper, made about him years earlier.

The former MLB pitcher, now 33, didn’t mince words about the situation. During an appearance on Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast back in September 2023, the podcast host and entrepreneur had made pointed remarks about dating athletes—comments that seemed to reference their relationship without naming names. Most stinging was Cooper’s claim that Syndergaard couldn’t get a contract in baseball, a dig that felt personal given his release from the Cleveland Guardians in August 2023.

Syndergaard’s response was measured but pointed. I haven’t spoken to her in eight years or so. I guess I continue to live rent-free in her head, he said, adding that while he considered it a cheap shot, he wasn’t losing sleep over it. He attributed the remarks to Cooper’s freedom of speech while making it clear he found the whole thing somewhat amusing. When podcast host Tomi Lahren suggested Cooper may have changed since their relationship ended in 2017, Syndergaard shut that down quickly: Not really. I don’t want to get into that. I don’t want to kick the hornets’nest any more than I have.

What’s revealing here isn’t the feud itself—it’s what it says about moving on. Syndergaard has clearly repositioned his life since his New York days. He’s traded late nights at clubs for farmers markets and Sunday mornings without hangovers. He’s learned the hard way that fame attracts people for the wrong reasons, and he’s become selective about who he lets close. Meanwhile, Cooper married Matt Kaplan and built her media empire with the Unwell brand.

Both have moved forward. The fact that Syndergaard felt compelled to address Cooper’s comments on a public platform suggests the sting was there, even if he played it cool. And that’s human—exes talking about us publicly stings, no matter how much time has passed or how successful we’ve become. But his refusal to dig deeper into the conflict showed maturity. Sometimes the best comeback isn’t escalation; it’s indifference.