Alex Cooper, a 2017 Boston University alum famous for hosting the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, alleged in her new documentary that she was sexually harassed by former BU women’s soccer coach Nancy Feldman.
Cooper accused Feldman, who headed the BU women’s soccer program for 27 years until retiring in 2022, of sexual harassment during her three seasons on the Division I team from 2013 to 2015. Cooper said the University dismissed her claims without investigation.
The allegations came in part one of the two-part Hulu docuseries “Call Her Alex,” which premiered Sunday at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. The series spans Cooper’s childhood to the first live tour for “Call Her Daddy,” the podcast she founded in 2018 that now has more than 1.4 million YouTube subscribers.
Cooper, now 30, alleged Feldman took an inappropriate level of interest in her while she played as a midfielder on the BU women’s soccer team. The allegations from Cooper included Feldman asking about her sex life, commenting on her body and putting her hand on her thigh, which made Cooper “deeply uncomfortable,” she said in the documentary.
BU Spokesperson Colin Riley and BU Athletics did not respond to requests for comment.
The first episode, dedicated to Cooper’s childhood and college soccer career, features shots of the “Call Her Daddy” host revisiting Nickerson Field, the home of BU’s soccer programs. Cooper was spotted in BU’s West Campus near the field in early November 2023.
In the documentary, Cooper said she noticed her sophomore year that Feldman took a personal interest in her “way more than any other teammate.”
“And it was confusing because the focus wasn’t like, ‘You’re doing so well. Let’s get you on the field. You’re gonna be a starter,’” Cooper said. “It was all based on her wanting to know who I was dating, her making comments about my body and her always wanting to be alone with me.”
Cooper alleged that if she resisted, Feldman would retaliate on the field by leveraging playing time.
“I started trying to spend as little time as possible with her, taking different routes to practice where I knew I wouldn’t run into her,” Cooper said in the documentary. “During meetings, I would try to sit as far away from her as possible, literally anything to not be alone with this woman.”
Feldman led the BU women’s soccer program until her retirement in 2022. She was the only head coach of the team since BU women’s soccer acquired varsity status in 1995.
Cooper attended BU on a full-tuition scholarship, which pressured her to remain quiet about her coach’s behavior, the podcaster said in the documentary.
Cooper and her parents said they shared written documentation of the alleged incidents with BU Athletics, but BU did not investigate or punish Feldman. Cooper left the team ahead of her senior year, but she retained her scholarship and graduated from BU’s College of Communication in 2017.
In a Q&A after the “Call Her Alex” premiere Sunday, according to Deadline, Cooper said taking part in the documentary encouraged her to speak out.
“During the filming of this documentary, I found out that the harassment and abuse of power is still happening on the campus of Boston University, and I spoke to one of the victims, and hearing her story was horrific,” she said in the Q&A. “And I knew, in that moment, if I don’t speak about this, it’s going to continue happening.”
The podcaster had referred previously to a traumatic experience with a coach while playing soccer at BU but hadn’t explained further until opening up in “Call Her Alex.”
In a 2023 interview with Cosmopolitan magazine, Cooper said the experience “took such a toll on my mental health,” and she was working on healing from it.
Both episodes of “Call Her Alex,” directed by Ry Russo-Young, began streaming on Hulu Tuesday, June 10.
This is a developing story. The Daily Free Press will publish updates when more information becomes available.
