Two other notable figures are leaving Barstool Sports. Alex Bennett and Jordyn Woodruff started hosting the Mean Girl podcast there in January 2022, and had worked for the company in a variety of roles before that. But Barstool founder/once-and-future owner Dave Portnoy confirmed in a video with Barstool’s Kevin “KFC” Clancy Tuesday that their expiring contracts will not be renewed.
Portnoy cited Bennett and Woodruff not getting back to Clancy after Clancy asked them to judge a Barstool OnlyFans pageant. (Woodruff launched an OnlyFans page of her own last July.) In that discussion, Portnoy said, “In light of everything going on around here with layoffs and speeches I’ve given, when I heard that story, that wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear.” Here’s that discussion, via Portnoy on TikTok:
@stoolpresidenteWhy the Mean Girls are done at Barstool Sports♬ original sound – Dave Portnoy
Portnoy went on to say that he likes those hosts (Bennett in particular), and that they may have been looking to leave anyway. He also says “I don’t really have a grudge,” and says he’s “inclined” to give them their podcast IP, so it’s not necessarily a high-drama breakup. But although the OnlyFans pageant was the only thing Portnoy specifically referenced here, it’s not the only drama around the Mean Girls and Barstool.
On Tuesday, the podcast hosts put up a since-deleted TikTok post of them walking into the company’s offices with the caption “When you show up to work Monday not fired even though all the Stoolies wish you were.” That led to a bunch of criticism, and Barstool’s Jack McGuire screengrabbed that before it was deleted and shared that on his own TikTok feed:
@jackmacbarstoolAnother day at Barstool Sports HQ BABY.♬ original sound – Jack Mac
This also led to Barstool’s Chris Klemmer retweeting that and calling it “****** and tone-deaf,” and to Portnoy roasting Klemmer for not posting anything over the weekend and calling him “easily expendable”:
You know what is tone deaf to me. An easily expendable person like yourself not writing 1 blog over weekend after layoffs. I'm not defending their tweet. I just don't think tone deaf people should chirp tone deaf people. If you didn't work at all I was paying close attention https://t.co/xnG79uZ21P
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) September 5, 2023
They then debated that on Barstool’s radio show:
“Why do you care? Why don’t you mind your own business?” Portnoy asked Klemmer on the radio show.
“I thought it was a ****** tweet and I called it out,” Klemmer answered. “I’m not going to stick to some hierarchy of who I can and cannot go after. I’m not gonna do that.”
Portnoy concluded the debate by telling Klemmer, “You won’t last long here. … You’re going to be jobless.”
For the moment, Klemmer still seems to have his Barstool job. And Woodruff did apologize for the post:
Yeah bc it was rude to our recently let go co workers. I posted it. I’ll take responsibility. I’m sorry & it was insensitive. It was a joke bc every stoolie & their mom were in our comments saying they hoped WE were fired. Next time plz say something to me directly if I offend u
— Jordyn Woodruff (@JordynWoodruff) September 5, 2023
But Klemmer isn’t the first Barstool employee to go at Bennett and Woodruff. Back in March, Barstool’s Kelly Keegan (who goes by Kelly Kleegs) wrote a post on their site titled “I Officially Hate The Mean Girls” (inspired by their viral clip discussing how they don’t wash their hands after using the bathroom). Some highlights:
Alex and Jordyn, in real life, aren’t bad. I like them both as people. Is Alex a completely different person than one year ago when I spent a lot of time with her on Barstool Vs America? Yes. Did she change for the better? Who’s to say. Jordyn sits behind me and we get along fine, we talk about wine sometimes and she was the one who blew the lid off the Onlyfans Cash Bucket, so I owe her for that. I am sometimes surprised that either of them get up in the morning and have enough brainpower to get out the door, but that’s another story. Regardless, I’ve spent enough time with them to know that both of these women are smarter, better, more eloquent than this constant stupidity mongering while sullying the always delicate perception of the Females at Barstool Sports (at least, I think.)
Sure, the brand goes crazy with clicks. How could it not, with such brain busting declarations and mind numbing banter? I’ve listened to a few of their actual episodes, and apart from getting a vibe so ditzy Jessica Simpson is rolling her eyes, it’s a good show. But you know how I know the powers that be are LOVING it? They get posted by main Barstool accounts Every. Single. Day. The Mean Girls sneeze, we hear about it for a week. Gaz waxes poetic for his entire allotted amount of time in every single company wide meeting we have. “The Mean Girls are crushing it!” “Be like them! Clicks are clicks!” This is where I have to bow out. I refuse to allow clips online perpetuate something that I, and every other girl at Barstool have tried to dig ourselves out of for YEARS – Girls are not stupid, girls can be funny, girls can make salient points on podcasts.
I need it to be said that no one, myself included, wishes ill on the success of the show. A rising tide raises all ships, we know that. They get a lot of views on all these social clips, we can’t deny that. But there is also something to be said about keeping the Barstool brand “cool” and “fresh” and something people are proud to say they follow. The more clips of Mean Girls we have talking about dinosaurs and hand washing on main page, the more that starts to go away. I didn’t bust my *** for 10 years to be a part of a brand that encourages a strategy so uncool, I feel the need to apologize for it.
This has to be the end. The Mean Girls brand has been established, the growth is there, it’s time to hang up the clickbait and produce something that actually requires neurons. “Let’s all collectively shove their self-declared, unwashed ***** down our throats because they get VIEWS” is not the mantra anymore.
And in a “Barstool Power Rankings” post Friday, Barstool writer Eric Nathan brought up Kleegs’ post, and had some strong thoughts on the Mean Girls there:
After the Kelly Keegs blog where she ripped them a new one, Alex and Jordyn went from being in the mix at HQ to basically non-existent overnight, while still holding themselves up as better than the rest of us peasants at Barstool Sports. From what I can tell, that is most people’s problem with them- it’s the fact for the most part, 90% of us are peasants, grinding day in and out, trying to keep our jobs, while they are god-knows-where, doing 1 episode of the podcast a week, but without the CHD-esque numbers to back it up. But think back- when Alex was in the mix doing RnR and Jordyn in the mix on shows like Friday Night Pints, there were no issues with them. And I don’t think anyone would care if they came back. In fact, the more people in the mix, especially unique personalities who know how to get eyeballs, the better. I think it would be great if they were mixing it up on a daily basis, especially once Keegs gets back from her 2 month European vacation.
What’s absurd is the “I don’t come to work because people are mean to me” angle. You think I wanted to sit 10 feet from Smitty when he made my life hell for months on end? Or when I was beefing with Kevin? Or countless other times I’ve been in the ****? **** no. But you show up to work because you’re an adult and you work at a content company that doubles as a reality show. Plus nobody gives a **** about the dinosaurs clip from months ago.
At any rate, the Mean Girls have certainly drawn a lot of attention to Barstool, both for their own content and for other Barstool employees’ reactions to it. And the public drama here fits with Portnoy’s recent comments of “You got a problem, you turn the cameras on, you settle it for content.” We’ll see what’s next for the Mean Girls post-Barstool, and where the next internal Barstool drama that goes public comes from.
[The New York Post, Yahoo; image from Mean Girl Pod on YouTube]
