When you arrive at the Breakers Motel in Montauk, it’s not hard to spot Alex Cooper. It’s not the platinum blonde hair, the see-through knit dress or the world-famous voice that is reportedly worth $125 million as of last week. It’s the quantity.
“I think she’s over there,” my friend remarks as we walk up the gravel driveway. We watch as a crowd of well-dressed 20-somethings crowd around one of the event’s many stations (this one is a Carbone pop-up serving bowls of spicy vodka pasta and overseen by Mario Carbone himself). Things start to move, and as I stand on my tiptoes, I can see Cooper’s head, smiling, laughing, and joining in as she tries to get from one end of the party to the other. And wherever Alex Cooper goes, people follow.
Starting August 23, Cooper and UNWELL, the talent network of Call her daddy Podcaster and her husband Matt Kaplan hosted their fourth major activation of the year, following weekend takeovers at SXSW, the Kentucky Derby and Fenway Park. For just two days, the Breakers Motel in Montauk became Motel 30 as Cooper and company transformed the property into the ultimate end-of-summer event, fully outfitted for the occasion with multiple bars, lawn games and activations hosted by a From a Burt’s Bees ice cream stand with custom-made Father’s Bees balms to taking over the Bondi Sands pool with a custom-made self-tanning bar
It’s also Cooper’s 30th birthday. “I’m just not a birthday girl, which is contradictory for a Leo, I know,” Cooper says. “I never usually celebrate my birthday.” So she threw a party for everyone else instead.
The weekend started on Friday night at Breakers with the official End of Summer Unwell party.
Daddy Gang, Cooper’s devoted fan base, is of course in full force; both Motel 30 events (Saturday afternoon will feature a more wellness-focused remake of Friday’s event, complete with IVs and cold water baths) are free and first-come, first-served, with fans able to RSVP online in advance. The crowd is mostly women, with a few dutiful friends among them, appeased by the open bar and the aforementioned carbone. Some have traveled as far as Australia and South Africa, and many have come alone. “The many people who have come up to me have said, ‘I came alone, and now these are my four new best friends.’ We’re all meeting up in town,'” she tells me over our Sunday dinner, a few hours before the weekend officially ends later that evening with tables at the Surf Lodge and many bottles of Casa Del Sol. “It’s scary to go to any event alone, but you know that the type of people who will be there are open-minded, fun girls.”
As Cooper makes her way through the crowd, she stops not only for selfies (although there are plenty of those), but also for candid conversation—and for good reason. Call her daddyThe tagline is “Starting conversations since 2018.” “It’s great to have that great party vibe, but I also love having intimate moments with these girls,” she says. “The amount of people who say, ‘Can I tell you a story before I take the photo?’ And I say, ‘Oh, we’re going to be here all day. And I’m so excited about it.'”
It’s not just Daddy Gang that’s making an appearance over the weekend, though. Two of Cooper’s newest Unwell talents, Owen Thiele and Hallie Batchelder, are making the rounds, alongside recent Call her daddy Guests include Maria Georges and Leah Kateb. Noah Centineo, a friend and frequent collaborator of Kaplan, shows up for surf lessons with Red Bull on Saturday, and I’m told I just missed Bethenny Frankel when I arrive at the Health & Unwellness event later in the day (I can watch her performance later on TikTok; looks like she had fun!). On Saturday night, the Unwell team and other close friends of the city come together to host an intimate, invitation-only dinner for Cooper, hosted by Carbone at a private estate nearby. There, Cooper gets the birthday treatment for the first time all weekend, including a giant funfetti cake with what appear to be three-foot-tall sparklers. “I can’t blow those out,” she says, eyeing the pyrotechnician. “But I love you all.”
The next day, she sips an Arnold Palmer and thinks about what it means to turn 30, both personally and as a businesswoman at the helm of an empire that revolves around young women. “Honestly,” she says, “I couldn’t feel better. Everyone says it’s the best decade, and I wish every woman could feel that, because no matter where you are, whether you’re single, whether you’re between jobs, whether you’re a huge success, it doesn’t matter. At 30, you just know a lot more what makes you happy, what makes you fulfilled. You have better sex. Everything is just better.”
“When I got married, people asked me a similar question, which was how it would affect the show,” she continues. “If anything, I think it allows me to reach more people. Because before I got married, I had no idea what it was like to be married. Now I was single, now I’ve had relationships, now I’m in a healthy relationship. I feel like each step has actually made me a better creator because I have a broader understanding of what people are going through. So I’m just excited to turn 30.”
Photos courtesy of UNWELL and Madison McGraw.
