Alex Cooper

2026 is the year almost every creator decided they wanted to build a media business. Alex Cooper is perhaps the best demonstration of what that actually means. Through Unwell, the company she co-founded with Matt Kaplan, Cooper has turned the audience and influence built around Call Her Daddy into a much broader operation, scoring highly across TDI’s assessment and earning a place in the Elite tier.

Nowhere is that more apparent than in Cooper’s push into television. This year has seen her move further in front of and behind the camera, including hosting and executive producing the Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special in March, while Unwell has continued building its production slate. Among the projects ahead is Netflix’s adaptation of Icebreaker, the bestselling BookTok romance by Hannah Grace, with Cooper serving as an executive producer. There have been misses: Hulu cancelled Love Overboard, which Cooper executive produced, after one season. Its performance offered an early test of something Unwell will increasingly have to prove as it grows: whether Cooper’s instincts and audience understanding can create hits when she is no longer the face of the product.

On the business side, Cooper has been equally ambitious. In August, Unwell took its first outside investment from WTSL at a $500 million valuation, giving the company capital to pursue further growth and acquisitions while Cooper and Kaplan retained majority ownership. Its expansion into consumer products has been less successful, with its Nestlé-backed beverage business being wound down, but the wider picture is of a creator business increasingly building the infrastructure and capital to operate on its own terms.

Perhaps Cooper’s greatest commercial strength is her ability to weave those ambitions into the personal relationship on which her influence was built. After announcing in May that she was expecting her first child, Cooper began buying items from followers’ baby registries. By August, the idea had grown into a partnership with Babylist, bringing her audience into her experience of becoming a parent while supporting other expectant families. It is indicative of the model Cooper has built: personal moments become shared experiences with her audience, which can in turn create opportunities for the wider Unwell business.

The combination of entertainment, investment and an unusually powerful personal brand makes Cooper one of the clearest examples of creator-business building in this year’s Index.

Representation: Cooper left longtime agency UTA in July 2026 and has not publicly announced new representation.