“Call Her Daddy” podcast host Alex Cooper wants in on the hydration craze.
On Wednesday the podcaster and entrepreneur will unveil the functional beverage line Unwell Hydration, $2.49 per bottle and $15 per eight-pack, that will roll out exclusively at Target stores nationwide and on target.com on Jan. 1, with additional retailers to follow throughout the year. Unwell Hydration comes in three flavors — Strawberry, Mango Citrus and Orange Hibiscus — and each bottle contains 700mg of electrolytes for hydration and B vitamins and green coffee extract for a light energy boost.
Cooper is best known for her interview podcast “Call Her Daddy,” featuring guests like Miley Cyrus, vice President Kamala Harris and Jane Fonda. Unwell Hydration is the latest in a slew of successes for the 30-year-old, who has sold out multiple tours and inked a multiyear $125 million deal with SiriusXM in August.
Unwell Hydration, an extension of her media platform Unwell, was inspired by Cooper’s experiences growing up.
“Growing up as a competitive athlete and playing Division 1 soccer, my entire life was based around hydration,” Cooper said on a Zoom call earlier this week, outfitted in Unwell sweats. “Then I got to college…[and] there’s also like, ‘Oh my god, I’m hungover.’”
While no longer a competitive athlete, hydration is still top of mind for Cooper, whether it be for hangovers or general wellness.
“As you get older, you obviously start to recognize you want to take care of yourself,” she said. “When you think about being unwell, it is somehow related to a lack of hydration.”
Unwell Hydration
Courtesy
Although hydration has become a major category across wellness, with Cooper herself receiving sponsorships from some of the top brands on her podcast, Unwell Hydration was created with her and her followers in mind. According to Cooper, there was a gap in the market for a brand specifically targeted to women.
“The entire market is geared toward men,” she said.
While athletic performance and hangover cures were two of the main drivers of Unwell Hydration, Cooper also began experiencing migraines in her 20s, and she has since found this product to be trigger-free.
“If I’m dealing with a migraine in the morning, I don’t want to have a coffee because I don’t want so much caffeine, but I want enough,” she said. “We have a tiny bit of caffeine, where it’s almost equivalent to a tea rather than a coffee, which was huge for me. Some days I don’t want to feel jittery and have so much coffee in my body, but you need that extra focus [and] pick me up. That’s where the perfect concoction of Unwell Hydration came together.”
Cooper’s fan base, known as the “daddy gang” are waiting eagerly to find out what Unwell Hydration is. Cooper teased the Instagram account under the handle @alexssupersecretproject553968, which already has 118,000 followers and counting who are guessing what the product could be.
“It’s all over the place,” she said of her followers’ guesses. “Some people are like, ‘It’s a reality show.’ Some people are like, ‘It’s definitely a drink.’”
Unwell Hydration
Courtesy
While the product won’t be available to consumers for another month, Cooper plans to keep this level of buzz up by leaning into upcoming holiday festivities, highlighting the beverage for her 3.2 million Instagram followers.
“You’re going to see me on social media throwing parties and drinking it and, of course, I’ll be having it with a mixed cocktail. I’ll be drinking it in the morning, maybe when I’m a little hungover,” she said. “Then come January 1, we’re trying to get our lives together and what better way then…to be able to go to a Target and buy yourself an Unwell Hydration?”
Cooper’s goal was to make sure that Unwell Hydration packed a punch and could be the drink for any time, whether mixing it with tequila or using it as a preworkout.
“That to me felt very emblematic of the brand,” she said. “It’s like, ‘We can be crazy in December, but January, we are all health and wellness. [Then] we’ll probably be back to being degenerates but it’s OK, we have Unwell Hydration.’”
Although “Call Her Daddy” has been sponsored by many major brands, Cooper is ready to step out on her own, though the process hasn’t come without its stressors.
“I feel like I haven’t slept in a year,” she said. “I have been so heavily involved in every step of the process as a founder, from the development to the launch of this brand, from picking the different flavors to creating the branding and the packaging, to developing the campaign concepts, to the social media strategy, the corresponding marketing strategy that will go with it.”
With new celebrity brands popping up every day, Cooper knew this level of involvement was crucial when developing the product. Concurrently, Unwell Hydration is the latest arm of Cooper’s media network, which launched in 2023 and has gone on to sign talent like Alix Earle and Madeline Argy.
“I’m not someone that’s just putting out a product,” she said. “This is the most authentic thing I’ve done since starting ‘Call Her Daddy’ and Unwell. This is an extension of Unwell.”
With that in mind, Unwell is in expansion mode.
“When I think about 2025, a huge goal for me is to continue to expand and to grow all of the IP that we have at the company,” Cooper said. “Something that has been at the core of what I do and why I love what I do is connecting with human beings, so whatever venture I’m going to take on, it’s in some capacity going to be fueling that community.”
While Cooper was tight-lipped on Unwell specifics, she said: “Just know I’m putting my foot on the pedal. It’s not stopping.”
