How the ‘Mean Girl’ podcasters risked it all after Barstool breakup — including selling a wedding ring (2024)

When the Mean Girls left Barstool Sports last fall, some speculated a controversy with the founder, Dave Portnoy, reached its breaking point.

That wasn’t the case for Alex BennettandJordyn Woodruff, the hosts of the “Mean Girl” podcast, which offers a candid and humorous perspective on topics such as sex, friendship, mental health and navigating city life as outsiders for its primarily female audience.

The “Mean Girl” podcast earned its place as a top-eight brand at Barstool Sports and became a cash cow for the media company through its social media-heavy business model.

Their monetized social media clips — usually a 60-second snippet about anything from sex and relationships to dinosaurs — would go viral and double their podcast downloads.

So, why did Bennett and Woodruff leave in September 2023?

Two divorces

Bennett and Woodruff were planning their exit for some time — and Bennett sold her wedding ring to fund her media company, Just Media House, in the fall of 2023.

“The risk was actually everything,” Bennett told The Post. “I went through a divorce during the same time, so my finances were such a cluster, and I had nothing and we didn’t have the funding yet.

“I had to sell my wedding ring. It was this moment where I was just like bawling, crying. But also, it was this moment of, I know this works because we’re not a startup in the sense of, we didn’t have a product.”

Bennett was married to Graham Bennett — son of Clay Bennett, who owns the Oklahoma City Thunder — for four years before they divorced.

During an episode of “Mean Girl” in Nov. 2023, Bennett shared that Graham had “left five months ago” and they had started the divorce proceedings.

Bennett explained that she and her ex aren’t on bad terms, and he was supportive of her big business venture.

“I told him [I sold the ring] because it was such an amicable divorce. The whole thing was always like, you can have the ring … and he loved me so much. It was like a really emotional thing,” Bennett said.

“I didn’t tell him to be nice. It just kind of came out in a sentence one day. We don’t talk that often at all actually, anymore.

“But I just know I had this sense of peace when I was selling it. He wanted me to do something with it … If I would have sold it and went bought a purse, I would have never slept at night. But to sell it to start a company, I just know he was proud. And [Jordyn and I] are both forever grateful for that.”

Bennett and Woodruff said they used most of the funds to pay vendors, producers, cameramen and others that helped them bring their vision to life.

Bennett has since moved on with Harrison Fugman — the founder and CEO of The Naked Market, a product company of food and beverage brands — whom she calls “Mr. President” on her social media accounts.

The influencer and Hugman “were set up by one of his investors,” said Bennett, who has 462,000 followers combined across Instagram and TikTok.

Woodruff and her boyfriend met on the dating app, Hinge.

“We had ‘Mean Girl’ pod and Dave giving us the IP from Barstool, I’m so forever in debt to that man because it was it was our lifeline,” Bennett said. “So, we had that and we had something to bet on.

“But we just had a two-week problem, we hadn’t secured the funding, and so the risk at the time was so scary — but you felt so alive. I couldn’t pay rent for a second … but you look back on it and you’re like, ‘That’s the dream,’ I think.”

The real tea about the breakup was…

Bennett is the founder and CEO Just Media House, a content platform, which houses the “Mean Girl” podcast, with plans to represent more creators and podcasts.

Woodruff — who garnered 413,000 TikTok followers and 131,000 on Instagram — is COO of the company.

The first external podcast on the Just Media House roster is “This Is The Worst,”hosted by comedians and television personalities,Brittany Furlan LeeandBrittany Schmitt, which debuted on Jan. 10.

Portnoy announced his decision not to renew Bennett and Woodruff’s contracts while on Barstool Radio in Sept. 2023.

At the time, Bennett and Woodruff said they arewere on good termswith Portnoy and formerBarstool CEO Erika Ayers Badanin afarewell video postedto the “Mean Girl” Instagram account.

It came after a mass round of layoffs at Barstool — and the drama with fellow Barstool host, Kevin Clancy [known as KFC], who claimed Bennett and Woodruff ghosted him when he asked them to be judges at the Barstool OnlyFans pageant.

All of that followed a separate situation with Kelly Keegs, another host at Barstool, who wrote a blog last Marchtitled: “I Officially Hate the Mean Girls.’”

At the time Keegs explained that although she liked Bennett and Woodruff “in real life,” she believed they put on a persona that made other females at Barstool look stupid — but they were getting “crazy clicks,” so their behavior was encouraged and praised at the company.

Keegs claimed the Mean Girls could “sneeze” and they were put on a pedestal at Barstool and promoted on its main social media accounts with millions of followers, and that other employees were encouraged to “be like them” because “clicks are clicks.”

Portnoy later said the Keegs situation “murdered” the Mean Girls, who were “growing” Barstool.

“[At one point, the show] was growing,” Portnoy said at the time. “They had a very quick rise. What was a little different, or at least seemingly from the outside is once Keegs killed them it really went down, so it looked like the Barstool audience was largely their audience.”

Bennett doesn’t believe the Keegs situation played a role in her and Woodruff’s exit from Barstool.

“I would say Keegs article or no Keegs article, the outcome is the same,” she told The Post.

Portnoy also made it clear that Bennett and Woodruff were not fired from Barstool.

“To be honest, based on some of the decisions, maybe they weren’t planning on staying anyways,” he said at the time.

A new beginning…

“Alex and I, we just wanted to go in a way that was going to make us grow in different ways,” Woodruff said. “Because Barstool would have been great, but we would have plateaued, and we wanted so much more.

“We talked about creating a business and doing this or that, so there’s nothing wrong with staying there. We just wanted to grow in different ways, and the only way you can really do that is if you are your own bosses.”

Breaking away from Barstool wasn’t a plan the pair had conjured up overnight.

“We talked about it for a long time.” Woodruff said. “I think we started talking about it March of last year. We just started working on growing the podcast, building connections and then our contracts were up and it kind of worked out perfectly.”

Bennett said this year is all about “being students of the game” as she and Woodruff continue to build Just Media House and their “Mean Girl” brand.

Since the launch of “Meal Girl” in January 2022, its primarily female audience helped reach more than three million downloads per year, more than 50 million TikTok view and more than 1.8 million monthly Instagram viewers.

Bennett and Woodruff launched season two of their “Meal Girl” podcast independently under Just Media House in October 2023.

The “Mean Girl” podcast celebrated its 100-episode milestone in January, and things are on an upward trajectory for Bennett and Woodruff.

They’ve maintained solid viewership and social media engagement since leaving Barstool, and hope to have the “No. 1 podcast and network” someday.

“We were really scared [when we first left Barstool] because when we walk through the streets, people don’t yell your name, they yell ‘Barstool’ at you like that’s what they associate you with first,” Bennett said.

“And so, to lose that, that’s a really scary thing because you’re like, is that what we are? Barstool? Right. But we knew our demographics and our listenership, and we knew we were more than that.”

Bennett and Woodruff plan to simplify content, make more of it, amplify voices and ensure that everyone’s contributions are fairly compensated through their company.