Alex Cooper’s Unwell Beverage Brand Reportedly Shutting Down Just One Year After Launch with Nestlé

Alex Cooper’s growing business empire is reportedly undergoing a major change, with her Unwell Beverage company expected to shut down just over a year after the Call Her Daddy host entered the increasingly competitive functional-drink market.

According to a Bloomberg report published Thursday, Aug. 13, the beverage business will wind down after selling a final collection of Halloween-themed drinks this fall.

The outlet cited sources connected with Target Corp., which has served as the brand’s primary retail distributor.

Unwell Beverage launched in 2025 through a partnership with Nestlé SA, extending Cooper’s already successful Unwell brand beyond podcasting and media into consumer products.

Representatives for Target and Unwell Beverages did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s requests for comment on the reported shutdown.

The decision would bring an unexpectedly short lifespan to a company that Cooper, 31, had positioned as an alternative to energy and hydration brands she believed were overwhelmingly designed for male consumers.

The beverage operation originally debuted with Unwell Hydration, a collection of electrolyte-focused drinks.

It later expanded considerably.

According to the company’s website, the Unwell beverage portfolio grew to include Unwell Focus, Unwell Protein and Unwell Energy, allowing the brand to compete across several fast-growing categories in the wellness and functional-beverage market.

The products were designed around the same irreverent identity Cooper had cultivated through Call Her Daddy and the wider Unwell brand.

But the idea behind the company also came from Cooper’s own frustrations as a consumer.

Speaking at the 2024 New York Times DealBook Summit, before the drinks officially launched, Cooper explained that she felt existing energy and hydration brands were often designed around male athletes and traditionally masculine marketing.

“Every time I went to pick up an energy drink or any type of hydration drink, it’s all catered to men,” Cooper said, according to The Cut.

She pointed not only to the products themselves but also to their visual branding and advertising.

“If you go on their Instagrams, the packaging is for men, and a lot of time it has to do with high performance, like you have to be a professional athlete to drink this,” she said.

Cooper added that, in her view, those products were “all made for men, by men, marketed to men.”

Unwell Hydration was intended to offer another option.

Rather than presenting hydration exclusively as something connected to elite sports or extreme physical performance, Cooper wanted to build a product for consumers managing busy everyday lives.

The initial concept was developed while Cooper was traveling for her 2024 Unwell Tour, according to the brand’s official website.

That demanding schedule helped expose her to the problem she hoped the beverage line could solve.

During the initial product launch, Cooper told PEOPLE that she often found herself physically drained while moving between work commitments, performances, travel and other responsibilities.

At times, she said, the exhaustion felt surprisingly similar to having a hangover even when she had not consumed alcohol.

“I was exhausted and I felt so hungover, even though I wasn’t even drinking,” Cooper recalled.

She began questioning why she was constantly tired despite attempting to take care of herself.

“I was like, ‘Why am I so tired? I have bags under my eyes,’ ” she said.

When Cooper attempted to find hydration products that suited her needs, however, she said she repeatedly encountered two problems: taste and sugar content.

“Every time I would grab something that was hydrating, it either tasted really s—y, or there was just so much sugar in it,” she explained.

Those experiences eventually became part of the foundation for Unwell Hydration.

The partnership with Nestlé gave the project significant backing from one of the world’s largest food and beverage companies, while Target provided Unwell with access to a major national retail network.

For Cooper, the launch represented another step in her transformation from podcast personality into entrepreneur and media executive.

Her rise began largely through Call Her Daddy, the podcast that became one of the most prominent shows in the relationship, sex and pop-culture space.

Cooper’s frank interviewing style and highly recognizable personal brand helped her build a large audience, particularly among younger women.

She subsequently expanded her ambitions beyond hosting.

The Unwell Network became a major component of that strategy.

Rather than focusing solely on Cooper’s own podcast, the network was built to house shows from multiple influencers and digital personalities, giving her a broader position within the creator economy.

The beverage business represented a different type of expansion.

Consumer packaged goods require a very different infrastructure from podcasting, including formulation, manufacturing, distribution, inventory management and competition for retail shelf space.

Nevertheless, Cooper entered the category with the same Unwell branding she had already established in media.

The original Unwell Hydration drinks were followed by products targeting additional consumer needs.

Unwell Energy moved the company directly into the energy-drink category.

Unwell Protein expanded the portfolio toward nutrition and fitness consumers.

Unwell Focus, meanwhile, was positioned around functional benefits related to concentration and everyday performance.

Together, the products suggested that Unwell was attempting to become a broader wellness-beverage platform rather than remain a single-product hydration company.

The reported shutdown now indicates that those ambitions will not continue in their current form.

Bloomberg reported that the business is expected to conclude operations following the release and sale of its Halloween-themed beverages this fall.

No detailed explanation for the reported decision was immediately provided.

It also remains unclear whether Cooper or Nestlé intends to retain any intellectual property associated with Unwell Beverage or whether certain products could eventually return under another structure.

The reported closure applies specifically to the beverage operation and does not indicate that Cooper’s wider Unwell brand or Unwell Network is shutting down.

That distinction is important because the Unwell name has developed into a much broader business platform.

Cooper continues to operate within podcasting and digital media, where she has built partnerships with creators and positioned herself as both talent and executive.

The beverage project was one branch of that larger strategy.

Even so, its reported end is notable because of the scale and visibility surrounding its launch.

Cooper had publicly discussed the philosophy behind the drinks before they arrived on shelves, presenting them as a product built around a gap she believed existed in the market.

Her goal was to create something that reflected the lifestyle of people who might be exhausted from work, travel or everyday responsibilities without necessarily identifying as professional athletes.

The products also carried the familiar Unwell name, connecting them directly to the identity Cooper had spent years building with her audience.

For now, neither Cooper nor the company has publicly provided a detailed explanation for why the beverage operation is reportedly ending.

With representatives for Target and Unwell Beverages contacted for comment, additional information could eventually clarify what led to the decision.

If Bloomberg’s report is confirmed, however, the upcoming Halloween release will effectively serve as the final chapter for Unwell Beverage.

What began during Cooper’s exhausting 2024 tour, grew into a Nestlé-backed consumer brand in 2025 and expanded across hydration, energy, protein and focus products is now reportedly preparing to leave the market.

The development does not end Cooper’s larger entrepreneurial ambitions.

But it does close one of her most prominent experiments outside podcasting — demonstrating that even a powerful creator brand, major corporate partner and nationwide retailer do not guarantee longevity in the fiercely competitive beverage industry.