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- "Call Her Daddy" host Alex Cooper was called out for a video in which she licked a dog's tongue.
- Cooper was accused of bestiality, which she denied in a recent podcast episode.
- Cooper said she removed the video in November, but a social-media drama account shared the footage.
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Alex Cooper, the 26-year-old host of the advice and comedy podcast "Call Her Daddy," has denied accusations of bestiality which emerged following a video she posted on Instagram. Though the video was originally posted on November 6, it began to circulate again on Twitter recently when the social-media drama account Def Noodles shared it on Wednesday.
The eight-second clip features Cooper, who has over 2.2 million followers on Instagram, sitting on a sofa with her pet dog Henry, who begins to lick at her neck and face. Cooper responds by licking the dog's tongue for a moment.
The clip sparked outrage as many viewers and Twitter users called it an act of bestiality. According to Merriam-Webster, "bestiality" is defined as sexual relations between a human and an animal. There are laws prohibiting the sexual assault of animals in 46 of the 50 states, though the act can still be prosecuted in those remaining four states if the animal suffers physical harm, according to the American Legal Defense Fund.
In a segment of "Call Her Daddy," which aired on Wednesday on Spotify, Cooper categorically denied the accusations.
"I feel there is nothing wrong with what I chose to let that dog do to my mouth," she said. "It's not bestiality, and I'm going to continue to post videos of Henry."
Cooper alleged that anyone who is "triggered" by the video and thinks what she did was bestiality must have had a traumatic experience in their childhood.
She also expressed frustration at how the clip was able to spread around the internet. Cooper said she originally removed the video from her Instagram story after only a minute, but it circulated online after someone screen-recorded the clip and shared it on Twitter.
Cooper said she had removed the video because she was concerned about her boyfriend's privacy, as Henry is his dog.
"I didn't want anyone to know about Henry, because I knew … there were stalkers out there who would be able to find my boyfriend if they found the dog," she said.
Variety first reported in June that Cooper signed an exclusive $60 million deal with Spotify for "Call Her Daddy." The podcasting star and influencer originally launched the podcast in 2018 with her friend Sofia Franklyn, who departed the show in 2020 after a dispute between the two over a potential deal with Barstool Sports, which previously hosted the podcast.
According to the podcasts analytics website Chartable, "Call Her Daddy" is the third-most-popular podcast in the United States on Spotify, behind Joe Rogan's "The Joe Rogan Experience" and "Drama Queens" by iHeartRadio.
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