“Sofia With an F” podcaster Sofia Franklyn revealed she had an abortion.
“There’s no right way to talk about this. I share a lot in this book, but this is hard for me to say even now,” Franklyn, 34, wrote in a Vanity Fair essay published on Thursday, October 22. “Having an abortion isn’t like having a public scandal, nor is writing about it.”
She continued, “I can usually reconcile the dark corners of my past, but my feelings around my abortion are, in many ways, still pending, and, frankly, it still feels very wrong to share publicly. I hope putting myself out there will free me from the self-imposed exile and shame.”
Franklyn explained that had an abortion in 2023, three years after her “Call Her Daddy” exit. (Franklyn started the “Call Her Daddy” podcast in 2018 with cohost Alex Cooper, who signed a solo contract with Barstool Sports in 2020. She left Dave Portnoy’s firm the next year and now runs the show under her own Unwell banner.)
“I let my boyfriend Aidan baby me,” Franklyn penned of life after “Call Her Daddy” and starting her own podcast in her forthcoming Daddy Issues memoir, excerpted by Vanity Fair. “He holds my hand through this half-life, a boy to keep my physical self company without making me confront my past, my direction, or really anything at all.”
Franklyn, who is now married to John Messamore, found out she was pregnant after a work trip to California. She immediately went to Planned Parenthood to discuss her options for terminating the pregnancy.
“After an hour in the initial waiting room, a nurse takes me to a room where she draws my blood and hands me a cup for my urine sample, which confirms the pregnancy,” she recalled. “‘OK … Can I get an abortion?’ I ask, genuinely not knowing what comes next. ‘Yes, we will talk about all your options and schedule it. Probably sometime next week.’ ‘I have to get it now,’ I say. ‘I’m leaving for Europe in two days.’”
Franklyn, then 30, underwent the medical abortion the next morning before joining her family on their international vacation.
“When I finally tell my mom, once a 21-year-old pregnant with me, I feel guilty for being 30 and getting rid of it within 48 hours,” she wrote. “I think about the so-called life I’m protecting by not having a baby — the partying, the numbing, the running. How can I bring new life into the world when I don’t live a life worth keeping myself?”
Introducing the excerpt, Franklyn noted that she wanted to share her story to support others in similar situations.
“I took the pills at home, and weeks later I couldn’t recognize myself in the mirror, physically or mentally, and I couldn’t figure out why,” she said in hindsight. “I felt crazy. I later learned that there is a physiological, hormonal, neurological chain reaction that occurs. No one prepares you for that part. At the time, all I had were Reddit threads and an off-handed comment my friend made to check my hormones months after. Getting some answers, no matter how disparate, made it less scary.”
Daddy Issues: A Memoir will be released Tuesday, November 10.
