When does a husband become a liability?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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What do you think is the real job of the husbands of rich and famous women? And are any men out there living up to the standard? I would say that I think their job is the same. I think the job is like, don't embarrass her. A good nepo husband knows to like let his wife be a star, but so many men struggle with that. And they like want a piece of the pie and then they drown the whole pie. Really? Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident. We've heard of nepo babies, nepo parents, and now nepo husbands. They're the spouses to high-profile women, and their proximity to celebrity means their own star is on the rise.
Never husbands come in many shapes and forms, but they all face scrutiny, especially when things go wrong. Matt Kaplan, who's married to Alex Cooper, host of the Call Her Daddy podcast, recently faced a Vanity Fair expose, which alleged a toxic work environment of their media company unwell. Alex Cooper responded to the allegations in part by saying, don't believe everything that you read on the internet. So what's a nepo husband to do? We're chatting with the hosts of Good Noticings to discuss all things nepo husbands. Ashley, Claire, welcome back to It's Been a Minute. It has been a minute. I'm excited to talk to you. Thank you so much. We can't wait to be here. We've been looking forward to it all week.
In a recent Vanity Fair expose on Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper and her media company called Unwell Network, which is not my choice for the name of a media company, but whatever, more than 30 former and current employees detail a toxic work environment spearheaded by Cooper's business partner and husband. Matt Kaplan. Kaplan is the co-founder and CEO of Unwell, a media company that brands itself as a Gen Z girls club with basically call her daddy and Alex Cooper as like the face and like the flagship enterprise of the company. But it's also a place where Kaplan has allegedly called employees stupid or the R word, asked invasive questions about their sex lives. And according to the Vanity Fair piece, workers characterize him as at turns flirtatious or given to screaming.
Unwell staffers characterize Cooper, Alex Cooper, as a mean girl, but they also note that she has a more muted presence when it comes to executive decision-making. But again, Cooper has defended the company against the claims in the Vanity Fair article. First of all, before we get into anything else, what do each of you make of this news? Okay, I think there have been rumblings about it for a while now. And I think this piece is really the holistic view of all of the reports we've been hearing, where it's like, yeah, seems really bad. I mean, Kaplan was a successful producer before linking with Cooper. He was a successful executive in Hollywood, but nothing on par with the magnitude of Unwell and Call Her Daddy and what Alex Cooper was building.
So in a way... I think he has become to a certain degree a nepo husband. I mean, basically he married into his job, essentially. Ace Entertainment is his production company where he produced To All the Boys I Loved Before. They've done a couple of projects that I've definitely heard of. So like in creating this kind of more, what do you call it? Just like more buzzy company with like more hot properties like the Call Her Daddy podcast, et cetera. Mm-hmm. Those are under him now. Like, what does their prenup look like? I mean, I imagine it's like the size of an encyclopedia. That has to be at least that thick. At least. Like, after reading the conversation on Bell Burden's book, where I found out that one of the big issues is that she had purchased a lot of their property and put both of them on the deed, assuming that they'd be together forever.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–7:26
2
What happened in the Vanity Fair expose about Matt Kaplan and Unwell?
7:26–16:37
3
How do we define a ‘nepo-husband’ and what makes someone one?
16:37–19:06
4
Which modern celebrity couples are examples of husbands rising via their famous partners?
19:06–27:24
5
How has this dynamic shown up historically in entertainment (Tina, Cher, Streisand)?
27:24–32:44
6
Why do men struggle with being the non-star partner to powerful women?
32:44–34:08