Alex Cooper accused her former college soccer coach of sexual harassment in her new Hulu docuseries, Call Her Alex, which premiered Sunday at the Tribeca Film Festival.
In the documentary, Cooper, host of the popular podcast Call Her Daddy, says that since-retired Boston University coach Nancy Feldman started to “fixate on me” during her sophomore year, per People. It was “all based in her wanting to know who I was dating, her making comments about my body and her always wanting to be alone with me,” Cooper adds.
Cooper says that Feldman would touch her thigh, try to get her alone, and ask her probing sexual questions. In one instance, she alleges, Feldman asked her if she’d had sex the previous night.
“It was this psychotic game of, ‘You want to play? Tell me about your sex life,’” Cooper says, recalling that it made her “deeply uncomfortable.”
Cooper says she and her parents contacted the school, apparently providing documentation of the incidents, but the school did not take action. Cooper left the soccer team before her senior year, and Feldman eventually retired in 2022.
In a Q&A following the premiere, Cooper recalled how she felt when the documentary’s director, Ry Russo-Young, had her return to the university’s soccer field during filming.
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“The minute I stepped back on that field, I felt so small,” Cooper said. “I just felt like I was 18 years old again, and I was in a situation with someone in a position of power who abused their power, and I felt like I wasn’t the Call Her Daddy girl. I wasn’t someone who had money and influence or whatever. I was just another woman who experienced harassment on a level that changed my life forever and took away the thing I loved the most.”
Cooper said coming forward with her allegations has “really opened my eyes to how difficult the system is, and it’s so built against us as women.” She called the experience “frustrating,” because “I want to tell women to come forward and say it, but I did, and I wasn’t believed, and then it took me a decade.”
“I’m not ashamed that it took me ten years,” she said. “But it makes me question a lot, and I think this documentary, as difficult as it was to explore, I actually think this is just the beginning.”
The Cut has reached out to Feldman and Boston University, who have not yet responded publicly, and will update this post if we hear back.
