There’s a swarm of tween girls outside Netflix’s Tudum theater, stealing glances at the Dunkin’ Donut boxes and DoorDash signs that adorn the premiere of Alix Earle’s new reality series Earle Meets World.
Earle is clearly and inspiration for this younger generation; a young woman who became famous for getting ready on TikTok, who now has millions of followers, huge endorsement deals and whose family is arguably the key contender to become the next Kardashians.
There is, as with most hit reality shows, plenty of drama.
In the first episode of Earle Meets World, which is produced by The Kardashians producer Fulwell Entertainment and led by former Late Late Show exec producer Ben Winston, Earle touches on the fallout of her battles with the other Alex, Cooper, host of Call Her Daddy and owner of Unwell Network.
The backstory? In August 2023, Earle signed with Unwell Network to host the Hot Mess with Alix Earle podcast, as first revealed by Deadline. However, last February, it emerged the pair had fallen out and Earle had “put a pause on podcasting”.
Earle’s father TJ, who owns a construction company in New Jersey and is her “dadager”, kicks things off on the show.
“Three years ago, Alix Earle signed with Alex Cooper’s Unwell Network. Alix has a feeling that she owes her audience an explanation of the truth about what happened. I think Cooper and Unwell mishandled the situation. After that, the internet was on fire,” he says.
Earle said that she felt “betrayed” and “hurt” by Cooper. “I just get scared because everyone tells me not to fight with her because they always win and they always come out on top. She even said to me ‘You don’t want to go to war with me’. I definitely feel betrayed by Alex Cooper,” she says in the show. “I was fresh out of college. I was 22. I had never done a podcast before. Going into the Call Her Daddy interview, I was so excited. That was on my dream board for years. It felt very personal, like she was going to be an older sister and look out for me. It was a really exciting time for me. But she sold me on a dream that she was going to protect me and look out for me and I feel like she took advantage of my admiration of her and she used that to her advantage.”
“What if you just say, ‘She’s a bitch and they sucked’?,” concludes TJ.
At the premiere, Earle was clearly nervous for the audience to see the show, but perhaps more because of the amount of crying involved rather than over podcast distribution deals (she had recently broken up with her boyfriend, NFL star Braxton Berrios).
“I’m very excited and very nervous for this,” Earle said. “I have been taking shots for like the past three hours… I might be at the bar while we’re watching this. But truly, I am really grateful to all of you for being here and to everyone who helped this show come to life. There was a lot of ups and downs throughout this filming process.”
“You’re all gonna see me cry, and I cry pretty much in every episode,” she added.
One of the interesting things that Earle alluded to was how fake social media was. “I think a lot of what you see online sometimes seems very perfected, and, you know, we really put in the work to put family first and make this a thing,” she added.
The series will follow Earle and her “blended” family.
This includes her sister Ashtin, who is also an influencer, and her other siblings Izabel, Penelope, and Thomas as well as her mother Alisa and her stepmother Ashley.
Her stepmother is better known as Ashley Dupré, the escort wrapped up in the middle of the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal. A few years later, she met TJ Earle, who was married to Alisa at the time.
“People know me from the front page in the New York Post. Eliot Spitzer, a very big scandal. I was cocktail waitressing and someone came up to me and said ‘Hey, you can make $1,000 an hour by going on dates with high-profile people’. I always thought it could be my secret forever and here we are,” Ashley said.
Alix Earle admitted to putting toothpaste in Ashley’s shoes. “That took a lot to come back from,” admitted TJ.
The eight-part series, which premieres on Friday, September 4, is clearly a priority for Netflix, which is hoping that many of Earle’s 8.5M TikTok followers and 6M Instagram followers tune in.
Earle called out Netflix execs Mollie Block and Hayley Lloyd for their help.
Brandon Riegg, who is Vice President, Nonfiction Series & Sports and oversees all unscripted programming at the streamer, introduced the premiere and called it a “very auspicious” night.
“At Netflix, we really aspire to reach the audience with storytelling that we feel is best in class. When Alix came in, she had such confidence and clarity and vision for what she wants to share with her fans, Netflix members, and with the world, and we’re excited to partner with her on that,” he said.
The whole process, however, was best summed up by Earle’s nine-year-old brother Thomas in the show.
“Why do you think your family is getting a television show?,” he’s asked. “So they can make profit,” he deadpans.
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