This relationship is getting Unwell. Alex Cooper’s Unwell Network will no longer work with Alix Earle’s Hot Mess podcast, per a February 25 report by Variety. SiriusXM, which is Unwell’s distribution and advertising partner, will not sell more ads for the show, and Unwell is relinquishing rights to Hot Mess. That means Earle will be able to freely pursue other opportunities. Hot Mess debuted under Unwell in September 2023 as part of its initial slate of podcasts, alongside Cooper’s Call Her Daddy and Madeline Argy’s Pretty Lonesome, both of which are still running. There was previous speculation of a rift between Cooper and Earle because Alex wasn’t among the Unwell hosts who attended the Super Bowl. Neither Cooper nor Earle have confirmed the split directly. However, Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy, whose network Cooper left, posted a (potentially fake) screenshot of a phone call between him and a contact he had in his phone as “Alixearlenew” onto his Instagram Story. The post was a reference to a similar post Cooper made on TikTok when Grace O’Malley left Barstool for Unwell last year.
Unsurprisingly, given both its stars’ natural habitat, TikTok has thoughts. Celebrity Memoir Bookclub posted a video discussing Variety’s framing of the news as Cooper having “dropped” Earle’s podcast. “The verbiage there, of ‘dropped,’ is probably not true,” they said. “I’m sure what happened is Alix Earle’s contract was up and then Unwell was able to go to the press first.” Others theorized that Earle would be going to Barstool Sports, given Portnoy’s post. All relevant info will eventually come out on their various podcasts. Otherwise, what’s the point?