Call Her Daddy Podcast Summary

Episode Title: Dove Cameron: Toxic Patterns, Engagement, & Entering 30's
Host: Alex Cooper
Guest: Dove Cameron
Date: February 4, 2026

Episode Overview

In this deeply personal and emotionally charged episode, Alex Cooper sits down with award-winning actress and singer Dove Cameron. The two discuss entering their 30s, processing childhood trauma, cycles of toxic relationships, self-growth, the legacy of Dove’s Disney past, finding real love, and embracing vulnerability. Dove candidly speaks about surviving family and personal tragedies, overcoming imposter syndrome, and stepping into adulthood with empathy and power. The conversation is raw, layered, and uplifting—offering connection for anyone wrestling with identity, loss, or breaking free from old patterns.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Entering Her 30s: Liberation and Self-Acceptance

• Feeling empowered by age
  • Dove: “I feel great about 30. I don't really have any hang ups about it... I was really wanting to be heard, wanting to be taken seriously, wanting to be respected at a younger age than people were willing to give that to me.” (01:40)
• Societal myths about youth and womanhood
  • Alex: “Society makes us feel like... your 20s are gonna be the best years, you'll have so much fun. But women I've talked to in their 30s, 40s, 60s are like, these are actually the best decades.” (02:28)
  • Dove: Challenges the narrative that women are ‘only valuable’ when young, tracing who benefits from that rhetoric (05:03).

2. Battling People-Pleasing and Imposter Syndrome

• Leaving behind people-pleasing
  • Dove: “It wasn't because I wanted people to like me—it was that I just don't want to upset anyone. So real and so unrewarding.” (03:04)
• Owning her worth
  • Late 20s brought confidence: “Even I can't really tell me that I don't know what I'm doing... I’ve well and truly earned some things.” (03:04)

3. Pressures of Appearance in Hollywood

• Struggle with body image and control
  • Dove: Opens up about her “reckoning” with harmful self-aesthetic practices, tying them to a need to “control the only thing I could control to hopefully create an environment where bad things wouldn’t happen” (07:48-09:21).
  • Saw “shape-shifting” for safety, not beauty; found healing through therapy and letting go.

4. Childhood Trauma & Family Background

• The murder of her childhood best friend

  • At age 8, her best friend Haley was murdered by her father.
  • Dove: “Even at 8, I could sense a dark energy. I remember... just not getting out of bed for like two days because it was so impossible to process.” (13:38-16:09)

• Impact of early trauma

  • Dove notes it fundamentally “fissured my psychology... I still have experiences where I’m grateful for the good things as long as I have them, because truly, at any moment it can be just an entirely flipped script.” (17:17)

• Family dynamics and her father’s mental illness

  • Dove grew up in a home marked by her father’s depression and bipolar disorder; recalls extreme mood swings and feeling responsible for family stability.
  • Dove: “I knew there was something, because I was a very precocious kid... The thing I was the most aware of was my dad’s really intense emotional swings... you hope to work around that, avoid his triggers... It’s not in your character, it’s an affliction.” (23:47-30:12)
  • Describes both the beauty and intensity of her family: “Some days are beautiful, and some days you’re upended again.”

5. Cycles of Toxic Love & Breaking Patterns

• How family patterns bleed into love
  • Dove: “The patterning that my brain found around, like: there’s the person who does the thing, and then the person who’s there for cleanup... That really fucked me up in my dating life.” (33:29-33:47)
  • Tolerated toxic behavior in relationships because of learned tolerance at home: “If my dad could do those things but love me... can I believe someone who does those things in a romantic relationship and says they love me?”
• Hitting rock bottom, then healing
  • Openly shares enduring “scary” moments in relationships that forced clarity: documented abusive episodes, sought therapy, and took a two-year romantic hiatus for self-healing (35:21-37:48).

6. Breaking Into Hollywood & Disney

• Resistant to ‘Disney girl’ stereotype
  • Dove: “I didn’t want to do Disney... I felt like it was going to be a lifelong commitment... I already felt older, already had trauma. I was not going to be the girl who came off fresh-faced.” (41:42-43:58)
  • Disney experience was both surreal and “some of the most fun and joyful times of my life.” (44:39)
  • On outgrowing Disney: “I have no interest in ‘bursting the Disney bubble’… I was just a good employee.” (48:12-48:59)

7. Grappling With Her Father’s Suicide

• The complexity of final interactions
  • Shares her last interactions with her father and the challenging realization of not being able to fix or be the “constant” for him (51:38-59:59).
  • Learning her father had taken his own life via a phone call: “All three of my big losses have come via phone call… I have major phone anxiety because of this.” (60:01-62:11)
• The pain of sudden loss
  • Most difficult was imagining his final moments and wondering if he felt loved (64:59).
  • Finds meaning in grief: “Part of the things I really love about myself and my life now are marked by the deepening that happens with grief... I love differently, I live differently.” (64:59-69:22)

8. Rebirth: Changing Her Name

• Honoring her father
  • Legally changed her name to “Dove” (her father’s nickname for her) to stay connected: “Everywhere I went, everyone was calling me what he used to call me.” (72:02-72:29)

9. Real Love and Healthy Partnership

• Finding the right partner after trauma

  • Engaged to Damiano (lead singer of Måneskin), describes a slow-burn, “meet-cute” connection that only flourished once both were healed and open (74:56-82:50).
  • Proposal at home, rooted in wanting “a normal life together—dishes, laundry, big T-shirt, no makeup. I choose you.” (91:27-91:28)
  • Both agreed that mature, honest communication about marriage was key—they were “active participants” in the process (85:00-86:09).

• Vulnerability and being fully seen

  • Dove: “I told him everything about myself... Even the things I don't want to admit to myself. Here's my mistakes, my loss, my things I still struggle with. Do you sign on for this? And he was like, yeah. Picked it up and put it on his back.” (93:54)
  • Partner’s emotional intuition and support is “so healing” after years of feeling ‘too much’ to be loved.

• Message to listeners struggling to find love:

  • “Don’t shrink yourself or believe you’re too damaged... you just have to find the right person who can support you. They won’t fix it, but they’ll love you through it.” (97:59)

10. New Career Moves: ‘56 Days’

• About her new show
  • A “pseudo-sexual thriller” about a love story that turns deadly. “Between that day and 56 days later, one of them ends up dead in a bathtub, melted by acid.” (100:39-101:10)
  • Proud of nuanced adult roles, including nudity: “I’ve never found nudity to be offensive or objectifying. Naked bodies are an innocent thing.” (103:16-104:04)
  • Sex scenes serve the narrative: the progression of intimacy mirrors the evolving, sometimes dark, relationship.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “There’s a vested interest in highlighting those years that... in my experience were the worst fucking years. My twenties were the worst. Glorifying that keeps us in disempowerment.” – Dove Cameron (05:03)

• “People-pleasing... it wasn’t because I wanted people to like me. It was coming from a place of ‘I just don’t want to upset anyone.’ So real and so unrewarding.” – Dove Cameron (03:04)

• On trauma cycles:

  • “There’s the person who does the thing and the person who’s there for cleanup. That really fucked me up in my dating life.” (33:29)
  • “If my dad could do these things and love me, could I believe someone in a romantic relationship who did those things and told me they loved me?” (34:06)

• On healing:

  • “I had to take a two year dating sabbatical... I was so disturbed by where I’d gotten myself to and who I’d chosen to love. But it’s complicated.” – Dove Cameron (37:36)

• On her partner:

  • “I told him everything... he just picked it up and put it on his back. It was so healing for me. He never wavered.” (93:54)

• On losing her father:

  • “All three of my big losses have come via phone call… I have major phone anxiety because of this.” (60:01)
  • “I would much rather have these things had not happened. But the deepening that happens with grief... I live my life differently.” (64:59)

• Proposal moment:

  • “He was like: ‘I know some girls want rose petals and extravagance but I wanted to do it like this because I want you in your big T-shirt, no makeup. I want a life, life. And I choose this. I choose you.’” (91:27)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:36] Entering 30, leaving behind 20s
• [04:15] People-pleasing and self-sabotage
• [07:44] Letting go of body image pressure
• [13:38] Childhood trauma: losing her best friend
• [23:47] Father's mental health, family dynamics
• [33:29] Toxic patterns in romantic relationships
• [41:42] Entering Hollywood & Disney's “dark” reputation
• [51:38] Last days with her father & his suicide
• [64:59] Grief, healing, and self-reflection
• [72:02] Changing her name to Dove
• [74:56] Meeting her fiancé Damiano (Måneskin)
• [91:27] Proposal at home—choosing “life, life”
• [100:17] New series ‘56 Days’ and adult acting roles

Tone & Final Thoughts

This episode is emotional, candid, and cathartic, alternating between laughter, tears, and profound insights. Both Alex and Dove share openly, connecting on the universal themes of grief, growth, and resilience. The tone is warm, direct, and often self-deprecating, with both host and guest normalizing mental health struggles, the complexity of family, and the lifelong journey of self-discovery.
For anyone who has felt broken or “too much” or is searching for meaning after loss, Dove’s story is both a mirror and a map—filled with pain, survival, hope, and love.