Alex Cooper Accuses Former Faculty Soccer Coach of Sexual Harassment

The Name Her Daddy host is the main focus of the brand new two-part Hulu docuseries Name Her Alex. Directed by Ry Russo-Younger, the movie follows Cooper’s rise to podcast powerhouse, together with her 2024 interview with Vice President Kamala Harris and her journey to the altar with husband Matt Kaplan.

However essentially the most pivotal second within the sequence takes viewers again to earlier than she was a family title.

Within the doc, which debuted on the Tribeca Movie Pageant and begins streaming June 10, Cooper claims she was the sufferer of sexual harassment throughout her time enjoying Division I soccer at Boston College. Cooper alleges that her former head coach, Nancy Feldman, made undesirable feedback about her physique and infrequently tried to get her alone.

“I felt quite a lot of anger — anger at my coach, anger at my college, and anger on the system that allowed this to occur,” Cooper says within the movie. “I do not assume anybody might’ve ready me for the lasting results that got here from this expertise. She turned one thing that I cherished a lot into one thing extraordinarily painful.”

Cooper’s mom Laurie, who takes half within the doc, remembers her daughter’s preliminary pleasure about becoming a member of BU beneath a revered feminine coach. Feldman has since retired, stepping down as head coach in 2022 after 27 years main the ladies’s workforce.

“Boy, that turned,” she says within the documentary. “The entire thing turned.”

In response to Cooper, the alleged harassment started throughout her sophomore 12 months. “I used to be decided to make a reputation for myself on that subject, so when my coach began to pay additional consideration to me, I figured it was most likely as a result of I used to be enjoying nicely,” Cooper explains. “My sophomore 12 months, every part actually shifted. I began to note her actually beginning to fixate on me far more than every other teammate of mine.”

“It was complicated as a result of the main focus wasn’t like, ‘You are doing so nicely. Let’s get you on the sphere. You are going to be a starter.’ It was all based mostly in her eager to know who I used to be courting, her making feedback about my physique, and her at all times eager to be alone with me,” she provides.

Cooper and her former dormmate and teammate, Alex Schlobohm, each allege that Feldman usually commented on Cooper’s look throughout workforce movie evaluations.

“We’re gonna rewind my tape each 5 seconds and we’re gonna speak about my hair and my physique,” Cooper remembers, quoting Feldman as saying, “‘Have a look at these legs. All people have a look at Alex in her uniform.'”

She additionally alleges the coach would “pull me in, simply be looking at me, sit subsequent to me on the sofa, put her hand on my thigh,” describing how “I felt so deeply uncomfortable.”

Nonetheless, she felt trapped: “I used to be attending BU on a full-tuition scholarship. If I did not comply with this girl’s guidelines, I used to be gone.”

Cooper additionally recalled a chilling incident, wherein she claims Feldman requested if she’d had intercourse the evening earlier than a event, after which benched her after seeing a person drop her off on campus.

“Each time I attempted to withstand her, she would say, ‘There might be penalties,” Cooper remembers. “And there have been.”

After Cooper claims her coach started to get much more invasive, with questions digging into her intercourse life and luring her into her automotive alone, the 30-year-old web character says she started going out of her solution to keep away from Feldman.

“I began attempting to spend as little time as potential together with her; taking totally different routes to observe the place I knew I would not run into her; throughout conferences, I’d attempt to sit as far-off from her as potential,” Cooper says. “Actually something to not be alone with this girl.”

Finally, her mother and father contacted attorneys, who allegedly confirmed what they had been coping with.

“That is clearly a case of sexual harassment,” Laurie says, earlier than recalling a warning from legal professionals: “‘If I am gonna be actual with you, they are going to drag this on for years and this shall be your life.'”

Cooper and her household nonetheless reported Feldman to the BU athletics division, however she claims the varsity took no actual motion.

“I need to play my senior 12 months. I need to end out what I labored my whole life for, however I can not play for this girl,” she says she instructed them.

They mentioned, ‘We’re not gonna fireplace her, however you possibly can preserve your whole scholarship and that is that. No investigation. Inside 5 minutes, they’d completely dismissed every part I had been by means of.”

Cooper selected to not play her senior 12 months, and Feldman remained in her position and was honored publicly, with December 11 even being declared “Nancy Feldman Day” by the town of Boston.

In a farewell assertion throughout her 2022 retirement, Feldman mentioned, “Hopefully by being challenged, [her players] grew, discovered extra about themselves, and have become stronger, empowered, and ready for all times. That actually is the legacy I hope to go away.”

No fees had been ever filed in opposition to Feldman. The docuseries doesn’t embody a press release from the varsity or its former coach. TooFab has reached out to Boston College for remark however not but heard again.

Cooper launched Name Her Daddy a 12 months later, and has made record-breaking offers within the podcast world ever since. The present, which began out as a commentary about intercourse and relationships, transitioned to highly effective interviews, with the likes of Harris, Jane Goodall, Gwyneth Paltrow and extra sitting right down to to talk candidly with Cooper.

“After I look again at the moment in my life, I used to be scared, hopeless,” she says throughout a go to again to BU. “I had no assets and no choices. And the minute I left that campus, I used to be so decided to discover a approach the place nobody might ever silence me once more.”

Name Her Alex begins streaming June 10 on Hulu.