Alix Earle finally addressed her online feud with her former boss Alex Cooper in the new Netflix series “Earle Meets World.”
The social media star told TheWrap she wanted the Unwell founder to take up no part of her reality series if she had her say, but after Cooper blatantly called her out on TikTok, she had no choice.
“I wanted her to take up not one bit of this series,” she said. “Then the Coachella thing happened. It unfolded in real time, and it was like, at this point, I’ve got to lean into this.”
“Otherwise, people are going to go back and watch the show and be like, ‘Really? We were filming during this period of your life, and you didn’t show or let us in?’” she added.
The feud, which started with some passive agressive likes and reposts by Earle, ramped up after Cooper publicly called out her fellow podcaster. She said that Earle was not bound by an NDA and could share as much about her experience at Unwell as she wanted. (Earle was previously repped at Cooper’s podcasting network.)
Earle’s silence led to whisperings online of what really went down between the blonde podcasters and even led to a “Saturday Night Live” spoof this spring. The Netflix series teases the drama in the premiere episode, but the bulk of it is addressed in the season finale after Earle sees Cooper’s TikTok on her last day of Coachella.
The Reale Actives founder revealed she did not know she was dropped by Unwell until the story was leaked to the press online. She received no direct communication from Unwell or Cooper.
Earle’s father TJ, who also serves as her manager, added that when she started her podcast with the network she had no producer or videographer and had to do everything on her own but still split the profits with Cooper. The social media star cared less about the profits and more about how Cooper took advantage of Earle’s admiration toward the podcast superstar. She added that she constantly felt used and mistreated by Cooper and felt like she was pressured into signing a second year contract with them despite the lack of support she received.
The drama culminated with a text that Earle never sent Cooper that detailed how she really felt about their relationship.
“I wanted to write you directly to let you know I don’t like you. I’m not gonna fall for your bait of getting into a back and forth online, and I don’t think you want that either,” she read aloud.
“You are manipulative and toxic. Go ahead and say it’s just business all you want, but the way you approach business is disgusting. You choose money over morals. You took advantage of me at a young age in a new industry I knew nothing about. You are full of false promises and Unwell was a continuation of that,” she said.
“We had a call where you threatened me to not go to war with you because you know how sick and twisted you are. Go ahead share this use it against me, but you will no longer scare or trap me. You are right I may be petty, but I’m not malicious. If there’s one thing I learned from doing business with you, it’s to never do business with anyone like you,” she concluded.
The Netflix series does expand beyond the Cooper and Unwell drama, though.
Ashtin Earle told TheWrap that she was not used to being confrontational until the show.
“Normally we’ll just you know maybe talk behind each other’s backs a little bit and get away with it, but now we can’t get away with it,” Ashtin said. “So we really had to talk through this before the show comes out.”
The Earles’ blended family takes center stage of the Netflix reality series as the twenty-something sisters bring their family together. Their parents and the mistress-turned-stepmother all sit at family dinners with one another and even joke about the girls’ nudes being leaked.
“I post my life online all the time, and I’m so used to being like open and candid. This was even like a new level for me of really letting people in,” Alix said. “Our family dynamic is abnormal, and we have our ups and downs, and no family’s perfect. So I hope that people are able to like relate in one way or another or just be entertained by it.”
“Earle Meets World” is now streaming on Netflix.
