Sofia Franklyn Finds Her Peace

Sofia Franklyn and I are giggling about hydration drinks. We’re tucked into the plush, sage-green seating at The Rhymers’ Club, a speakeasy hidden behind Cafe Maud in Manhattan’s East Village. Sipping her tequila cocktail with pineapple on the rim, she walks me through her favorite powdered drink mixes, including Liquid I.V., which she currently has in the pink Owala water bottle she carries in her purse. “Water. I could really turn that over,” she jokes when I tell her she could become an H2O influencer with all her knowledge.

The irony of this conversation is obvious to anyone familiar with Franklyn’s lore. In a scene near the end of her new memoir, Daddy Issues, she comes across former Call Her Daddy co-host Alex Cooper’s Unwell Beverages in the aisles of CVS, like a specter haunting her with her former friend’s success in yet another business venture, years after they last spoke. Franklyn initially has a mini-crashout, made worse by having vomit in her hair after a horrible stomach bug. Then something clicks. “OK, so what? She surpassed,” she recalls thinking in that moment. “It was hard to come to terms with, but when I did, I was like, ‘I'm free.’”

Franklyn, now 34, has built a new life after her headline-making fallout with Cooper in 2020, when much of the internet turned against her. After the two clashed during their contract negotiations with Barstool, Cooper began hosting the podcast without Franklyn, left Barstool, and later signed multimillion-dollar deals with Spotify and SiriusXM. Franklyn launched her own podcast, Sofia with an F, got married, and now splits her time between NYC and Europe — all while staying mostly tight-lipped about what happened six years ago.

I'm not going to have my story told for me for six years and then not be super raw and honest.

“I needed time, and I needed to grow up so that I could approach it from a real, vulnerable, ego-removed way,” she says about why she waited until now to share her side of the story. Daddy Issues, out Nov. 10, is her chance to finally say her piece. “I was walking around with an elephant in the room,” she says. “Now it's all out there, and I feel lighter and just more confident, less social anxiety. Obviously there's some nerves with it, but I'm ready.” Revisiting her past through this medium meant going over it again and again. “If anyone's trying to work through something, write a book, then do all the drafts of said book, then do the audiobook version,” she says.

This version of Franklyn is reflective and earnest, with the same biting sense of humor that made the CHD audience fall in love with her so quickly. She still curses every other minute, and not even discussing her go-to drink order can keep a four-letter word from slipping out. She’ll also drop random tea on a dime, including a tangent about a hot surgeon who didn’t make the memoir because “there's so many dudes in there.” But now she has nothing to fear, because she’s already lived through her worst-case scenario and survived. “I have some armor. I'm better equipped now,” she says. “There's no way the headlines could be worse than six years ago.” (Case in point: a 2020 New York Post article citing Barstool founder Dave Portnoy calling Franklyn “an idiot.”)

She’s used to having the internet’s attention now, but it wasn’t what she expected when she grew up in Utah as the rebellious daughter of a young single mom. “Hell no,” Franklyn laughs when I ask if she knew she would be famous. “Fame was never a thing that I was after or thought could happen.”

Her memoir includes details about her family life that she’s never shared publicly, including her stepfather’s addiction. “I think that was the toughest thing — how do I tell my truth, but tell my story even if it's going to paint people I love and care about to the utmost in not the best way?” she says. But it’s also full of light moments, including one memorably sarcastic exchange with him when he tries on her cheetah-print pencil skirt. “I hope people understand the humor in the book,” she says. “That scene is so dark, but it's funny as sh*t.”

Franklyn dreamed of doing anything other than working her first job in finance, which left her “horrified, depressed, and bored.” As an avid fan of pop culture podcasts like Adderall and Compliments, she saw them as a creative avenue she could pursue. “I know I manifested the life of having a podcast and living in New York. I don't care how witchy I sound, I know I did,” she says. “The fame piece just so happened to come with it.”

I actually found myself missing her. I was able to grieve the breakup, because I don't think I grieved it at the time.

The long-awaited move to New York came about in 2018, when she orchestrated a work transfer through her job at Morgan Stanley. Franklyn’s writing about this time period paints a specific picture of late-2010s life in the city — nights out at TAO Nightclub, hungover days spent watching Insecure from bed — and she knows her Gen Z followers might be confused by some references. “When I bring up Via now, people are like, ‘I have no idea what you're talking about,’” she says.

When it came to writing about her Call Her Daddy era, Franklyn had to break the habit of PR-ifying her perspective — a trauma response built from navigating a media firestorm when sh*t hit the fan. “I had to train myself to not write for how it would be perceived. When everything went down, I was very much trained to talk about it in this very specific way,” she says. She also fought the urge to minimize her own questionable decisions, like one drunken night out at the Barstool Christmas party that led to a major fight with Cooper. “I had to really be like, ‘OK, even if it's uncomfortable and even if it doesn't make you look great, that's how you have to write it,’” she says. “I'm not going to have my story told for me for six years and then not be super raw and honest.”

Everyone was like, ‘Oh my God, you left. You left this deal on the table.’ I actually didn't. I was fully cut out.

She combed through her camera roll to return to the good memories, painting a picture of a close friendship full of love and care. “That was hard for me to recall, not in a traumatic way, but I think I had blocked that whole thing because I ended up chalking up our whole relationship to…” Franklyn holds her hand out in a pushing-away gesture, as if to mimic Cooper shutting her out. “But I actually found myself missing her,” she says. “I was able to grieve the breakup, because I don't think I grieved it at the time.”

After CHD went on without her, Franklyn went into “survival mode,” going home to Utah to weather both the pandemic and the tabloid frenzy. “I didn't learn sh*t about myself during that time because I was in damage control. I didn't have time to grieve, to heal, to think, and it wasn't until years later that I was able to learn,” she says. But from the start, she was clear on one thing: “I didn't walk away from the show. Everyone was like, ‘Oh my God, you left. You left this deal on the table.’ I actually didn't. I was fully cut out.” (Elite Daily reached out to Alex Cooper for comment, but did not hear back by the time of publication.)

The general public has completely, and without me saying anything, shifted their views on that situation.

The experience taught her many life lessons the hard way, including the importance of de-centering her career and fame. “Do not hang your hat on things that can be taken away,” she says. “I had to think, ‘Who is Sofia without the job, the reputation, the anything? Who am I as a person without all these external things?’ I don't think a lot of people have ever had to think that way.”

It wasn't just the internet and CHD fans turning against her. Other podcasters and internet personalities — her peers — spoke out about the drama, too. Franklyn says not one person has circled back to apologize. But with time, the tenor of her comments section started to change. “The general public has completely, and without me saying anything, shifted their views on that situation,” she says. “I've literally seen comments like, ‘We saw the whole thing wrong.’ That's why I walk around, easy, breezy, beautiful, Covergirl, because people get it. The audience is more educated now.” She doesn’t even feel the urge to scroll through hate comments anymore. “Most of the time, the really gnarly ones I find funny,” she says.

That's what happens when some unjustified things go down. You can live your life not worried about it happening again.

She’s not worried about Cooper’s potential reaction, even though she says there’s already been some backlash. In the prologue to Daddy Issues, Franklyn writes about getting an angry phone call from Cooper’s husband, Matt Kaplan, when her book deal was announced. She giggles now when I ask about it: “How crazy is the prologue? I would like to know what publicist they had or if they just went rogue. Because I would not allow that.” Franklyn hasn’t heard from Cooper or Kaplan since that day. “I'm not scared. It's ballsy, but that's just how I feel,” she says. “That's what happens when some unjustified things go down. You can live your life not worried about it happening again.” (Elite Daily reached out to Matt Kaplan and Alex Cooper for comment, but did not hear back by the time of publication.)

Her “hot girl healing journey” has been ongoing, and she’s tried various off-the-wall pursuits, including auditioning for Bravo’s Summer House a few seasons ago. “I actually don't watch the show, but my manager at the time was like, ‘They reached out, and we think you should do this. Even if you don't want to do reality TV, it's a good experience and practice,’” Franklyn says. She made it to round three. “I had to go to Rockefeller Center, and it was a boardroom with all these white guys in their 60s sitting there. They're like, ‘Tell us about your dad.’ And I was like, ‘OK, let's go off.’”

That opportunity wasn’t in the cards, but she thinks it’s for the best. “People don't know this about me, but I prefer to be writing or behind the camera,” she says. “I don't get excited by mass exposure, which is hilarious considering the memoir.” Franklyn then immediately backtracks. “I could be full of sh*t.” In fact, she says a future on Bravo is a maybe.

Splashy headlines aside, Franklyn hopes people see the book as more than just a chance to rehash old wounds. “I hope that people read this as not just a tell-all. I really spent time being like, ‘This is my life story, and I want them to read the book like that.’ People will come for the tea, but I want them to leave with a story,” she says, then flips her hair. “I want them to be like, ‘What a writer, super hot and super intelligent and has her way with words,’ and give me a film and TV deal.”

After she wraps up her five-city book tour, Franklyn plans to keep hanging out with her husband in glamorous international locales. “Milan, Como, London, New York,” she lists as the places she’s currently living between, then laughs. “I hate to be that b*tch.”

She’s been getting into home decor and dabbling in simple recipes. “I want to go into my Ina Garten era, but I don't know how to cook,” she says. “I’ll be in Italy, wherever, just making soup and rearranging the coffee table.” I mention that she sounds like a woman who has found her highest self. “That's when you know you've reached nirvana, self-actualization, and you are at peace with the world,” she says. “That's what I want to capture.”