Who is Matt Kaplan? All about Alex Cooper’s husband as podcaster reveals why she isn’t ready to have a baby

Alex Cooper quietly married Hollywood producer Matt Kaplan on April 6, 2024, in an intimate ceremony at Riviera Maya, Mexico. The Call Her Daddy host had long kept the relationship out of the public eye. The pair’s first encounter took place over Zoom in 2020, a detail Cooper teased her audience with for years before revealing his identity.

Matt Kaplan’s journey into film production followed a path not entirely typical of Hollywood execs. He attended Columbia University, where he played quarterback for the Lions and dabbled in filmmaking.

“Football and film were the only two things I liked doing for fun,” he admitted during a conversation on The Backlot podcast.

Matt Kaplan’s unlikely rise: From Lionsgate assistant to studio CEO

Although he studied direction and writing while in college, Matt Kaplan found his strengths lay elsewhere.

“I wasn’t that good at it,” he confessed, adding that he soon realized he had a knack for “assessing material.”

That skill set laid the foundation for a pivot into production.

His started out as an assistant at Lionsgate. From there, Matt Kaplan advanced into executive roles, eventually contributing to major projects, including The Hunger Games series. A later stint at Blumhouse brought him deeper into genre filmmaking, but it was at Awesomeness Films where he truly found his stride.

While leading that studio, Matt Kaplan helped bring To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before to life — a franchise that became a cultural phenomenon.

“I called some friends over at Netflix and I said, I made this movie. I think you guys are gonna like it, and they watched it and bought it,” he shared.

Kaplan, now CEO of Ace Entertainment, played an active role throughout the production process — from casting decisions to wardrobe and set design.

On her June 4 episode of Call Her Daddy, Alex Cooper, 30, opened up about her and husband Matt Kaplan’s recent experiences navigating the decision to start a family.

"I want to share something extremely personal that I have been holding onto for the past year, one of the decisions that we have been actively trying to figure out is when we want to try and have kids... And we ultimately decided that we wanted to start trying to get pregnant last summer," Cooper shared during the podcast.

Alex Cooper opens up about pausing baby plans after hormonal struggles

According to Cooper, she and Matt Kaplan were filled with enthusiasm at first, even launching into home renovations to create space for a growing family.

“We were so excited and ready, we started planning renovations on our house to build a nursery and upstairs kids bedrooms,” she explained.

However, Cooper noted that things changed when she came off birth control, which she had been on since age 16. What followed were “excruciating” physical symptoms and significant hormonal changes.

“New hormonal fluctuations were just so intense,” she said.

The experience led her to pause the process and reevaluate.

“I could tell something wasn't right, and of course, all of the questions any woman would start to think were running through my head ... like, 'Am I fertile? And will I even be able to get pregnant?' And I just started spiraling and assuming the worst,” Cooper explained her fears.

Her mental state began to shift.

“I remember starting to have doubts. It started to eat me alive inside because, you know, this wasn't the plan. it's not the plan that we talked about and that we agreed upon... now I'm doubting myself and second-guessing everything,” she said.

In the end, Cooper made a decision, that she would prioritize her health and listen to what her instincts told her.

“I started to get so anxious and panicked, and I started to feel like it was all just getting away from me. And I was losing this precious time... it was this all-encompassing, overwhelming feeling. I know in my gut, like, I need more time,” she explained.