Real Talk with Chelsea Handler

Some of you may remember Chelsea was on my h G t V show Martha Knows Best, where I showed her how to make a delicious apple cider cocktail, and of course everyone remembers how she tried to emulate my famous pool selfie that I choke back in at my former home in East Hampton. Welcome to my podcast, Chelsea. Oh hi, Martha's so good to see you. Well, we just finished your podcast, which was very enlightening. I know, I mean, this is Dr Chill. See yeah. People call

in for real life, like life problems, interpersonal affairs. Some people are in bad relationships, bad working environments, and I have to kind of try and help and you can help them, that's right, which is amazing. Well, I've anointed myself as psychiatrist in very loose terms only because I got so much out of my own therapy experience. I absorbed so much information that I couldn't wait to spit it back out and kind of share it without yourself. I was. I think I was in bestudent, because you

really are regurgitating advice from psychiatry that you know. I I feel like I feel like you are psych Well, thank you, that's exactly the impression I'm trying to make. Huh, well, that's very interesting. Well, I yet also I wrote a book when I got when I went to therapy, I was so enthralled by all this information that I was

learned and I had I was learning. I had all these light bulb moments where he would explain my behavior and why that was, you know, something that was represent ended up of something that happened in my childhood, which you know, earlier in my life. I thought all was just a bunch of horse I'm like, what does my childhood have to do with my adulthood? And I didn't want to spe one of those adults who spent their adulthood getting over your childhood, you know what I mean?

I think it's a I think that's the worst thing a person can do. Yeah, relive or imagine would affect you had as a child on your future life. I just can't. I never think about that. Yeah, yeah, well maybe I should. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, they say an unexamined life, you know, isn't a life not worth living. But some people don't need to examine their lives.

Other people really need to get get it straight. So I couldn't wait to share what I learned, and I wrote it in my last book, and then I'm turning that book into a TV show, so it just kind of keeps. It's well, we haven't titled it yet. It's at Peacock. We just turned our script in, so, uh, I don't know. It probably won't be the same name as my book. We'll have to come up with a new structure series. Yeah, me starring in it one, you're gonna start. Great, that's something to look forward to. Yeah,

So how are yourselfies coming along? Well, I mean I'm waiting for you to inspire me because when I saw that pool selfie of you in I just that was during COVID in lockdown, and I thought, oh, I could do that pose, and I I got right into my bathing suit and went down to my pool, and I did my hair and makeup as close to yours as I could, and I put that right out there and

it was such a big hit. And then you were your typical self by commenting on your pool being nicer than mine, which actually seth Meyers also confirmed he thought was nice. Yeah, I think most people are going to think that your pool is nicer than mine, and I'm fine with that. I'm just gonna might have to it might have to do another one because I have a new pool. Okay. Well I'm also building a new pool. Okay, well I'm going to do another pool selfie and see

what we come up. Where are you based out of now? Because Bedford, New York. Okay, I have a beautiful pool in my fool and it's enclosing a red beach hige and it's very very pretty. Do you spend a lot of time in the pool? No? No, no one, No one who has a pool really goes into the No. I do go in, but but I don't have time so much. It's late at night that's when I usually go in. I don't have a really nice hot tub with lots of jets. I had to put extra jets in,

So that's like, you know, it's like a jacuzzi. Yeah, and that's what That's what I really like, is the jacuzzi. Yeah. And swimming laps is fun but boring. Yeah, swimming is boring. Never Mark spits, remember Mark spits, the swimmer, the Olympic swimmer. Well, he remember him saying, you know, because he had to swim lap after lap after lap, thousands and thousands, he said, I just imagined some beautiful girl at the end of

each lap. But you know, you sort of run out of beautiful men to think about at the end of lap. So the thing I like, Yeah, that's swimming. I do find boring. I mean, most exercise can be boring if you overdo it. But I remember reading Katherine Hepburn's biography. Kate remembered and she would get up in the morning, and she lived on the in Connecticut, right and she would jump into the freezing cold Pacific and swim and laps every single morning. And I she attributes her mental

clarity and her strength to that. And I think there's a lot to be said about diving in the ocean and swimming like that. Well, good for her, It's good for her. It really is amazing to swim in the ocean. So aside from all these thirst traps, um, we have something else in common. You were also one of six children born in New Jersey, as I was, and what affections that had on you just being part of a big family. Are you a close knit family? Yes, we are pretty tight we have There are six of us

minus one. My brother passed away when we were little. He had an accident, so there are five of us. I think that event probably brought us together even more. Um, but we're very tight knit. And you know, my brothers, some of them have been married to people and our our family that you know, don't fit in and as nicely with the core group as as we would like. But then you know that's part of people getting married,

your brothers and stirs. So are you friendly to those people or do you do you turn your back on those people? Know where we do our Yeah, we make it work. We make it work, and we're all very kind of politically aligned, so we don't have any of that drama. I'm the youngest, I'm the most spoiled. I was always the most spoiled because my parents were a little bit um lame. They just kind of by the time they had me, they had the run out of parenting um at energy. So my brothers and sisters were

kind of left to spearhead my childhood. So they all I'm very spoiled. I was very much the youngest, and now I'm in charge of all of them, Like I make the decisions about where we're going, what vacations were taking. We go every way Christmas, we go to the Marthe's vineyard every summer, and I basically am in control of the family. So being the youngest and the oldest, I think simultaneously, are there any other actors or comedians in

your family? No? No, just me? And did you know at what age did you know you were going to be a comic? I never knew I was going to be a comedian until I moved to Los Angeles, and I just wanted to be like I wanted people to know me and know who I was, Like I'm more had a desire to be well known, to be honest. And then when I came to California and uh, somebody introduced the idea of stand up comedy, which was so scary, you know, getting on stage alone and with what and

saying what. And I remember going to a comedy club and I just thought, oh my god, you know, this is gonna give me diarrhea. I can't ever do this. It's too scary, it's too intimidating. And then I just thought, Oh, you're on stage with a microphone and you're the only one allowed to talk and no one can interrupt you. Like,

that's a great idea for me. And then I just mustered up the courage and I started doing a big talk, like the way you are very good talk and talk and talk and talk very um you know, like I can. I can engage with almost anybody. And I like that. I like learning about people, and I like expressing myself and I love the art of language. You know. That's why I like writing books as well. And that's why I love stand up is because you're articulating something and

you're expressing yourself. And I love words and putting them together in a way that makes somebody think. And you don't get tongue tied, Uh No, not not really. Sometimes I do. Yeah, sure I have been tongue tied or I've said the wrong thing. Or you know, spoken too fast. I'm definitely done. When you're doing your stand up Do you have a do you have an earpiece in anybody? Remind you of something? No, that I just have memorized. You do, like, you know, on a tour, I'm probably

on my I'm still on my tour. I just announced another twenty two dates, so I will have done at the end of this tour, probably a hundred and twenty dates. So after you you know, I start out with like nine pages of notes of what I'm going to say, and then, as you know, the shows go on, you condense it, you edit. It's kind of like writing a book, and then you get off script and you memorize it. At what point in your career did you realize that

this was what you were meant to do? Um, I feel like I wouldn't be able to do much else, you know. I tried to be temp like a temp person. I tried to work in offices when I was in my twenties. I waited tables. I got fired from almost every job. I was terrible with people when they were

telling me what to do. I remember being an intemp office trying to transfer a call like from the front desk into the partner's offices, and it was such a debacle that somebody one of the partners called and said, who is this bimbo that we hired at the front desk? You have to get rid of her. And I was like, oh, that's me. I said, I'm so sorry. I don't know how to transfer phone calls. He's like, that's all you have to do at this job is transferred phone calls.

So I just my My sister always said it perfectly. She said, you know, you're not good at anything else, and you won't be not good at any of the things that you can do. I'm not domesticated in any way. Um so yeah, this is pretty much my purpose, I think is to share. So what what age were you when you became Chelsea Handlers? Um? Well, I had a pretty pretty big, you know, impression of myself. Early on,

I had a lot of misplaced confidence. But when I became well known, I was probably thirty, So I'm not not old. You were young, yeah, thirty, But you know when I was waiting tables from like twenty eight, thinking well, it's eight years enough, it's a it's long enough to be scared that it might become permanent and that I might be waiting tables for the rest. What was what was the first thing that you knew that you were

going to make it? Um? Well, yeah, I got a lot of development deals, like an NBC development deal, which is where they would see you do stand up and say we're gonna build a TV show around you and they'd pay you like a hundred thousand dollars. At the time, I was a waitress. The first time I got that deal, I was like, WHOA, I can this is it? Like I can retire? And then you realize, no, You're not gonna be able to retire on a hundred thousand dollars because you have to get half of it a I

to you know, taxes, commissions, etcetera. But when I really made it was probably I had a couple of big breaks before my show Chelsea Lately. But Chelsea Lately and my books kind of coalesced at the same time and it was kind of a um perfect storm. So I think that's when I really when I became kind of like a household name was during Chelsea Lately. It was such a great shows seven seasons and we had so much I mean, we laughed our asses off doing that show.

It was just one big audience left. Yeah. Yeah, it was really fun. And then you started your own production company. Yeah, so you're you're really incorporating good business with with your comedy. I wanted to ask, what's the difference between a comic and a comedian? Is there any difference? No, not really, You're rather be known as a comedian comedian without being a without it being like female. You know, yeah, comedian seems a little bit passe. And do you have who

who were your mentors in comedy? Um? Who who are your heroes? Well? I don't know about mentors. I don't really I didn't. You know, I was so arrogant when I was coming up, Like I really thought I could do it all by myself, and any of my success was was from me. You know. I recently inducted Joan Rivers into the Hall of Fame. And I remember being on E and she was on E and she would try and you know, kind of engage with me or hang out and I just kind of had no time

for her. And and and recently when I inducted her into the Hall, uh for Netflix, I you know, I spoke about that, like how I didn't realize how important and integral she is and every female comedian's past. She was doing stand up when when women were never doing it. Wasn't she the first big stand up coming Philis Diller and Joan Rivers? I believe. Yeah, I'm sure we're forgetting a couple, but those women were out there when it

was a total man's game, you know. So when I was coming up, you know, to not give credit where credit is due is you know, something that I regret and not you know, and now really understand more comprehensively how important it is to recognize the people who open those doors for you, because you know, somebody always came before you. So you haven't You haven't told me who your heroes were. Oh so, I guess in hindsight, she

would be a hero of mine. As far as a mentor, Jay Leno was really good to me when I was coming up. He had me on his show all the time doing kind of remote sketches and he was a good mentor. Again, we didn't have like a personal off camera relationship as much, but he was sweet to me. And uh, yeah, I guess you know, I don't really think the old timers, No, No, I wasn't really in. I was who did you loved? Who did you loved? Jerry Lewis? Did Bill Cosby? So look where that got me? Well,

you know he was on my show. I remember what a fantastic man he was. What the hill happened? Oh my god? Yeah, well we were all duped. I remember growing up watching Bill Cosby thinking I wish my father had together, like that had been his own, you know, O B g y N office in our house, Like how great they live in this beautiful home. Now we know what he was doing in that O. B g y N office. I know, isn't it crazy? Yeah? It is.

He came on my show and he had a beautiful switter on and I admired his sweaters, like cardigan, a male cable knit cardigan. Twitter. Next day I got a box from the store where he had bought his and he and he sent it to me. You know. Once I was in Atlantic City and he and I were both performing in the same casino, and he asked They asked me at the casino. They said, Bill Cosby wants to say hello to you. Will you go up to

his hotel room? And luckily I was with four men and that we're working for me, and I brought them with me up to the hotel room. But when I showed up with those four guys to his hotel room, he was pissed, what do you what do you? What are you guys all doing here? And they're like, well, we worked with Chelsea goes you work. I had one guy who was opening for me in my opening comments. Do you think he had yeah? Yeah, oh yeah, his

plan was thwarted. Huh oh dear, that's a said. That's the said part of the last I guess five years right, yes, that whole thing. Well, in two thousand and seven, you became the second woman in the history of television to host a late night gig, after Joan Rivers. Right, yeah, and uh so this is a monumental accomplishment. How did

you celebrate? I celebrate, you know what. I I celebrated by really highlighting all of the other people that were on that show with me, all the comedians that came out of that show, of which there are so many that whose careers were launched on that show, like Fortune Feemster and Lonnie Love and Kevin Hart was a part of that show. Tiffany had it, Don't Love Kevin Hart Tiffany. My gosh, I did a skit with them. I mean

I couldn't talk as fast as they could talk. Oh yeah, but both of them, I mean, heaven cannot shut up. They can't stop talking. Every time you turn on the TV, he's doing another commercial, and like, are you filming these commercials while you're sleeping? Right? It's so funny. So then you you did all this this stand up comedy, You did your shows, and then you started writing books. What's the process for you for writing a book? For me,

it's it's long and painful. Yeah, and even though I am writing my hundred book, what yeah, hundred have hundreds? How's that possible? Well, because I've had help along the way. But I've been writing books on various subjects, all relating to living. But um, but the processes, you know, it's difficult. And we have to take pictures too, your books. At least you don't have to take pictures. Well, that would make it easier, I think, right, taking the pictures, writing

to pictures is easy, it's easier. But what's your process? My process is I just started. I just signed a new Boo deal, so I'm starting my next book and Uh. I. My process is I just throw it all down, like I love the art of language, and I just I start writing. You know, in the beginning, I just throw it out and I put in a lot and it becomes a lot of noise in the beginning. And then it's kind of that process that I described for the stand up where you start refining it, you know, I

throw it over to my editor. That's what I love about writing a book is having a sounding board in an editor, you know, who can kind of say, okay, this is gonna work. It helps you shape it because that's what I have, all the material that's all in my head. I have stories and personal stories and you know, and memories that I can always share and I can in check that with humor always that's no problem. But it's the shape of the book to make it, you know, you know, to me do an outline first, No, I

just start writing. I just start, you know, writing stuff down, and then well the working title is called the Filipino in Me, and uh, we'll see if that title sticks. But yeah, I'm going to write about my love store. I think it's really important to inspire all the people that are in my age group that may give up or think they're too old to meet someone, or you know, people lower their standards a lot because they think they're

they freak out about not meeting the right person. And I want to just remind women and men and everything in between that you do not ever have to lower your standards because as long as you hold your standards at a certain level, that's where the person is going to come meet you. So it's self help in addition to yeah, it's yeah, but it'll be funny and I have my stand on it, you know. Tongue in Chief.

Have you been to the Philippines. I'm about to go to the Philippines because he's got a big movie premiere there for his movie. Oh is he a producer, No, he's an actor a movie. Yeah, it's called Easter Sunday, And we're going to go to the Philippines for my very first time. And uh, yeah, I can't wait. Have you been to the Philippines? Yes, I had the best trip to the Philippines. Oh my gosh. We went to Manila and then went out for Manila to the rice patties.

There's aishous food in the Philippines. Wait till you wait, you visit some of these amazing restaurants and uh, and I learned how to plant rice, and I visited a lot of crafts people who do beautiful, beautiful work there. You know, that's been one of the big manufacturing centers of the world of Philippines. And uh. Also I met a lot of very interesting people. Yeah, so you'll have a fabulous time. I'll give you my gener if you want. Oh, that would be great. Yeah, I love that. You should

see a lot of this stuff. And there's it's just a it's a very very beautiful country and you just have you have to get out of the city a little bit, make sure you see the landscape. Yeah. And Filipino people are beautiful, so just loving and they're happy and they love karaoke. Yeah. Yeah. In your business, you also had to deal with hecklers and haters and how do you deal with that. I'm pretty good at shutting them up pretty quickly. I don't really have a high

tolerance for people interrupting my show. But you know, I mean, ever since the Dave Chappelle thing happened, people are talking about that or the Chris Rock thing previous to that. At the Academy Awards, I mean hopefully that is. You know, everyone has had to double up on security that's doing live shows, and that includes me. But yeah, I do, you know, have security. I don't let that guide my

performance or have fear of that, you know. I just kind of go out there and do my thing, and and I hope that nobody's wasting money paying on paying that amount of money to come interrupt a show. You know, they're just gonna get removed anyway. What do you think Chris Rock's gonna do? Um? I think he's handled himself with a lot of a plumb. I think that he's he did the right thing. The question is, what's Will Smith gonna do? You know, he's the one who looks

like a real jackass. Well, what is going to happen to him? I don't know. I mean he's banned from the Academy Awards, so that's something. You know. That kind of behavior was just so shocking. Do you remember watching that? Yes, I was just I was in my kitchen watching the Economy Awards and I was utterly shocked. I thought at first it was an act. Yeah, I think a lot of people did. Yeah. I was just like, what would

I mean? I just can't imagine taking those steps on the stage thinking you have the right to get up on that stage and smack somebody like it just didn't didn't didn't make any sense at all. It's really embarrassing for him, Well it is. It's after such a fine performance. Yeah, you'd way to take the moment out of it, you know, it was, it was horribly What makes the excellent comedian, because I mean, you you have done so much, You've

you've transformed your comedy a lot. You think about it a lot, I guess, But what makes the really really great comedian? Now in retrospect, I think being a really good listener, because what you're doing is observing and paying

attention to other people's behaviors and yourself. So you have to have the gift of self awareness, a you have to be aware of how you behave in this world, because it starts with the self deprecation, Like any real comic has to start talking about their shortcomings and their behavior that's embarrassing. And then and then, and it's being an observationist. So it's about watching people and really having a curiosity in my opinion, about other people. So do

you invest in other comedians? Yes, oh yeah, all the time. I have deals in my production company developing comics. I always bring female comics on the road to open for me. You know, I am always looking. I love to make sure that I have my finger on the pulse of So when you go through Netflix, now there's a whole line just for comedy. Um like the Mrs masl Yeah, what do you think of her? Well, that was comedy in like the forties or fifties, so not really my

cup of comedy. But I love the show and I love Rachel, but it's not like, you know, that's not funny anymore. It's like Lenny Bruce kind of comedy, you know. But she has a she has a mole phoner. Oh yeah, yeah, she has her mouth on her. But that's funny, like you know, in the time frame it took place, it's funny. But nowadays, if you saw a woman up there saying that, you'd be like, what is this, you know, and who's the who's the up and coming comics you excluded? Of course?

Um on right now. Oh, there's a few. There's a Rosebud Baker, Matteo Lane, Vanessa Gonzalez. Yeah, so women and a guy Matteolane. Yeah, yeah, and he's he's something. Matteo Lane is awesome. Do you know, No, I've just I've just watched Oh yeah, yeah, incredible. Yeah. So there's comedy

just keeps evolving. Yeah, I mean right now is a really good time for comedy because there's so many people coming up, so many young promising comics, and there's a diversity in comedy like that is loud Now there's so many Asian comics, there's so many black comics and that are getting the attention that they deserve. So we're not just seeing kind of you know, for a long time, there was like, you know, if Chappelle was the black

comic or Kevin Hart. Now there is a plethora of them and that are getting their do and that's really nice to see because you know, white guys have had their kind of comedy being uh aired and getting like the advantage over everybody for a really long time. It's a male dominated field, so it's nice that it's opening up for women and for minorities in the way that it has been. And what about Robin Williams. He was

one of my very, very very favorite people. Yeah, um, what did you think of his oh, I mean he was have a computer mind. Yes, he had something special, extra special going on. His daughter, Zelda I ran into recently at um at the festival for Netflix, and she it's so funny because she has his mannerisms and yeah, and she sounds like him. And and my boy no she's not, she's a director, but she, uh, my boyfriend's like,

oh my god, Zelda sounds exactly like Robin Williams. And when you watch Robin Williams, like they dected him into the Hall of Fame to the same night as Joan Rivers, and you watch him and you're just like, oh my god, this guy is otherworldly, Like you know, that's a cut above a comic. Like he had something extra special going on. I adored him him amazing. You spent some time with him in Yeah, he came on my show and and it was just like it was just like being with

something other than a human being. Really, it was really like being with someone who thought faster, talk faster, reacted faster than anybody I've ever been with. Yeah everything, yeah, right, and it was like just unusual. Yeah, he had a charge, a charge, and like a charge extra supercharged. He was like a Tesla, but a human my Tesla by the way, Yet yesterday and this heat lost its air conditioning. No, yeah, I was really not happy. No, I bet I would not have wanted to be around you. And then I

called the Tesla dealer. You know, No, I didn't quite call it Ellen yet, but I'm about to because um, it's hot weather and I have to drive that car because I don't want to buy any gas at seven dollars a gallon, so um. I called the dealer first and they gave me an appointment for next Wednesday. That's not good because what do I do it till next Wednesday? Have to come to the city many times if you drive a gas guzzling car. Well, that's what I'm thinking.

Like with all of like, with the heat index going up the way it is with climate change, how is air conditioning continuing? It's going to continue because it's going to be a higher and higher demand. We're gonna have to have it on all your lockout And I know it's gonna happen everywhere. There's gonna be air conditioning blackouts starting already in the Midwest and in the West and South you know Texas, Like but um, but I'm mad about my Tesla. Yes, and I love my Tesla. Yeah.

I love my Tesla too. I I hear you believe me? You have one? Yeah, I have one too. Yeah. Another question about comedy again, What won't you talk at out because this is this is something that people do. Put up walls around there, or do you talk about everything? I think I've talked about everything. I mean, I try not to make fun of like ugly children, you know, that's pretty much off limits. Going after children, you know, or anyone who's handicap that's off limits. But yeah, I

mean it. So you know, you can be clever and still be respectful to people without subverting your comedy. Like it's people are complaining about how hard it is to be funny in this politically correct world. It's like, actually, all people are asking is for people not to be sexist or racist, Like that's not at all order. It's kind of easy to do that, And if you can't be clever with those parameters in place, then you should

probably rethink what you're doing. You know, comedy is about making things funny, and you know your point of view, so I don't find that too limiting. Chelsea, you are an amazing person. You are a phenomenal comedian, You are a wonderful business woman. You are on your on your way. I mean you've been on your way, but you are on your way towards greater and greater things. And I really appreciate you taking the time to visit me here

in New York in my office speak with us. I was supposed to, by the way, I just want all the listeners know, I was supposed to go to Martha's farm. And that was a something like a two hour drive that I was willing to take because I said, you know what, I'm not going to pass up Martha's farm. I'll invite you with another non business Okay, you'll come to a party or something. Do you live in New York? Ever? No, but I'm here a lot. Where do you stay in Oh I'm not gonna ask you where you stay in

New York. Do you want your you want your hecklers to be out there? Oh? My gosh, Well never. We will never tell you where Chelsea stays in New York. But she will be visiting me at my farm where everybody knows I live and you know, yeah I live. Um, but but it's been a pleasure having thank you, thank you so much. A