Whitney Leavitt Is Cashing In on Dirty Soda—and Helping Take the Mormon-Fueled Trend Nationwide

The reality star is joining the C-suite of Cool Sips as the fast-growing drink chain expands.

BY ALI DONALDSON, STAFF REPORTER @ALICDONALDSON

Whitney Leavitt. Photo: Getty Images

“There’s a lot of ambitious women in Utah,” Whitney Leavitt tells me. It’s clear that she is one of them. 

When Secret Lives of Mormon Wives debuted on Hulu back in September 2024, the reality series—which follows a group of young moms, who all practice Mormonism to varying degrees, around Salt Lake City—became a cultural sensation. To millions of Americans watching, Leavitt became the latest in a long line of TV villains in a lineage that spans from Omarosa and Spencer Pratt to Tom Sandoval and Jax Taylor. But after two years, three seasons, and countless cups of dirty soda (soft drinks mixed with flavored syrups and creams), the 32-year-old has channeled that star-making casting into a platform that reaches far beyond the confines of streaming or social media, where she commands a following of more than 3.6 million people on TikTok and more than 1.9 million on Instagram.

As the one-time pariah used her screentime to become a fan favorite on Secret Lives, Leavitt turned her attention beyond the show. Last fall, she cha-cha-ed on Dancing With the Stars alongside castmate Jennifer Affleck and influencer turned entrepreneur Alix Earle during one of the competition’s most-watched seasons in years. Then she channeled her sixth-place performance into a record-breaking Broadway debut as Roxie Hart in Chicago. 

Now, Leavitt is lending her amassing star power to the startup world. The influencer and reality star is joining the C-suite of Cool Sips, a New York City-based dirty soda chain. Leavitt will serve as chief creative and brand officer, a new role that comes with a broad edict to lead creative direction and product innovation as the company expands its menu beyond soda to include iced teas, lemonades, energy drinks, and cold brew coffee, and looks to take the Mormon-fueled trend nationwide. 

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“I enjoy marketing,” says Leavitt, who has become a go-to influencer for major companies such as Panera Bread, Aveda, CeraVe, and The Honest Company. “And it’s different, because I’m not just marketing one product, I’m marketing a company, which I think is really exciting.”

Cool Sips, which launched in 2024, has grown to four locations across Manhattan with five more planned to open this year. The company is the latest brick-and-mortar consumer concept from serial entrepreneur Andrew Moger. The founder and CEO of BCD Strategic Investments has developed and backed popular restaurant chains, including the Mediterranean fast-casual spot Naya, barbecue restaurant Mighty Quinn’s, and The Smith Restaurant. Moger, who says he was attracted to Leavitt’s “creative instincts, entrepreneurial mindset and authentic passion for dirty sodas,” sees bringing the marketing savvy of one of the drink’s original influencers in-house as the “pivotal” next step in his plan to amplify this momentum and stretch Cool Sips’s reach across the East Coast. 

“Whitney has helped bring Dirty Sodas into the cultural mainstream, fueling a social-first movement that has driven real consumer demand,” Moger tells Inc. “As that momentum transitions into a scalable business, her leadership will be instrumental in shaping what comes next.”

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