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0:05/31:08
Chelsea Handler Has a Message for Straight Men
The comic discusses returning to the road and what cancel culture means for the future of comedy.
Thursday, July 8th, 2021
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Archived Recording
(SINGING) When you walk in the room, do you have sway?
Kara Swisher
I’m Kara Swisher, and you’re listening to “Sway.” Two words to describe Chelsea Handler right now? Vaccinated and horny. Not my words, by the way. That’s the name of the standup tour she just announced. And it’s on brand for a comedian known for her progressive politics and her acerbic and often blue style. But in her latest HBO standup special “Evolution,” Handler says she’s changed. She says therapy was a breakthrough, one that, quote, “de-bitched” her. Well, let’s see if that’s true. Chelsea Handler, welcome to “Sway.”
Chelsea Handler
Hi, Kara. How are you?
Kara Swisher
Good. So I want to talk about this Vaccinated and Horny tour. Is that how you’re feeling, coming out of Covid?
Chelsea Handler
Yes, horny falls under the umbrella of pent-up frustration, which is something I’ve felt throughout this pandemic because it was very hard to casually date people during a global pandemic, obviously. And dating isn’t really a top priority when people are dying all across the world. So now that we kind of have our go time and we are coming out the other side of it, I really wanted to be a reason to bring people together.
Kara Swisher
You just announced 40 dates across the U.S., starting this summer. How is the road going to be different? How do you expect audiences to be, besides vaccinated and horny?
Chelsea Handler
We’re not taking it for granted anymore. Being in a crowd with 2,000 or 3,000 other people is going to be a much different experience than it was before in the sense that we’re grateful. Listen, every comedian is going on the road who can go on the road and has business on the road. Because we’ve all been sitting at home for so long. And our oxygen is attention and a microphone.
Kara Swisher
Of course, nobody was on the road. Nobody did anything, really. They did a lot online. How did you cope with it as a comedian?
Chelsea Handler
Well, what I did first was I shot my HBO special “Evolution,” which was the most personal thing I’ve ever done on stage. We did it last August in New Jersey. So it was really meaningful and important for me to tape this during the pandemic. So if it meant having 20 people in the audience, that’s what it meant. We ended up having about 150. But we had to be really Covid safe, obviously, for the crew and for the people coming. So it was a lot of stress and a lot of jumping through hoops, but it was well worth it. And then it felt good to be on stage and bring people out. Many of the people in the audience hadn’t been out at all since Covid had started.
Kara Swisher
This was a very intimate show, too. You talked about therapy.
Chelsea Handler
Well, it’s an interesting loop because I went to therapy to de-bitch. I realized at a certain point, your behavior doesn’t work for you, or your lifestyle doesn’t work for you. And I had been moving so fast, doing my TV shows and then doing standup tours and then writing books. I started to get very burnt out on all facets of my career. And I was just exhausted. And so I had to re-evaluate and went into therapy. And going into therapy is awesome because you’re paying somebody to tell you why you’re fucked up. You’re paying somebody for the transaction to point out your shortcomings and say, OK, you lack empathy.
Kara Swisher
So the culture has changed during the pandemic, too. It’s more aware, more sensitive. There’s more issues around cancel culture. At the same time, it’s become more coarsened in a lot of ways, how we speak to each other. So are you putting guardrails on your comedy when you go back out?
Chelsea Handler
I like some parameters. I like for some people to lay down some laws for me so that you can find the chaos within it and be creative about what you are exploiting and what you are making fun of. What is the moment that we’re living in? And we’re having a social justice and racial justice movement. So there’s tons to play with and tons to talk about. And we’re all kind of saying goodbye to so many of the things that we’re so accustomed to doing, having to say goodbye to words that you used to think were OK, having to say goodbye to phrases and ways to describe things that you think were OK, having to say goodbye to men for a while because they’re on probation. And until they’ve proven to us that there are more good ones than bad ones, there’s one big group we’re still able to make fun of. And that’s white guys who don’t seem to be getting the message of the movement that’s happening. I’m single so I deal with a lot of straight men who don’t seem to understand that either get on the bus, or you’re going to miss it. You know what I mean?
Kara Swisher
So if you had to pick one of these people who are fair game, who would it be? Or is it still Trump for you?
Chelsea Handler
No, I mean, Trump is out of our faces on a regular basis and off of Twitter. And I don’t want anyone to have to think about him or hear about him any more than we already have.
Kara Swisher
Let’s run through some of the white men you feel are fair game — Elon Musk, Andrew Cuomo — who you had a crush on, and since then, things have happened, obviously — Jeff Bezos. Is there anybody you feel like would be interesting to comedically treat in some fashion?
Chelsea Handler
Yeah, I mean, all those guys deserve to be made fun of because they’re all assholes. You know what I mean? Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk for sure. Yeah, all of those guys. When you guys make that much money, we’ve got a big problem with capitalism in this country. So yeah, those guys are on the table to make fun of. Look at Bill Gates. We looked at Bill Gates, and I thought Bill Gates was this great guy. I was like, look at him. He’s the best millionaire. Warren Buffett — he’s the best millionaire. And then you find out —
Kara Swisher
Billionaire. Billionaire, Chelsea.
Chelsea Handler
Yeah, well, right, right, of course. And then you find out Bill Gates, and then they get divorced. And you’re like, divorced? You’re like, Bill Gates and Melinda Gates, he doesn’t seem like that kind of guy. He wouldn’t be having an affair. He wouldn’t be doing — and then you fucking find out, yeah, he could have been! Or he could have been at Jeffrey Epstein’s. I mean, allegedly, possibly. Who knows? But it’s like nobody — would be fucking Bill Gates in the real world. Nobody.
Kara Swisher
So what would you like to recorrect on Andrew Cuomo? In the show, “Evolution,” you have a crush on him. Because at the time, he was doing all the Covid things, which seemed very comforting. And then, of course, since then, some reporting has been done about a wide range of problems that we’ve had with him.
Chelsea Handler
Yes, right. Well, I offered myself up to Andrew Cuomo leading — in the pandemic, I was very turned on by his morning news conferences, as many of us were. And he reached out to me. And we had a couple of conversations on the phone.
Kara Swisher
Reached out — what do you mean? Like, hey?
Chelsea Handler
He called me. He called me. We talked on the phone. And he was really feeling himself.
Kara Swisher
Not literally. Go ahead.
Chelsea Handler
No, who knows what he was doing? He could have literally been feeling himself. I’m not sure. We weren’t FaceTiming, so I can’t tell if he was pulling a Jeffrey Toobin. I doubt it, though. I was on the East Coast filming my special. I thought we would have a drink or something along those lines. And he blew me off. And then I found out all the stuff we found out about him subsequently. And I thought, well, I guess, this is a guy that doesn’t like it offered up. So my crush with him is, yes, O-V-E-R.
Kara Swisher
OK, I’m assuming so. I was like, oh, no, no, no.
Chelsea Handler
Can you imagine if I still had a crush on him? I was like, yeah, he seems like a great solid guy. As a single woman who has remained childless and alone, which, by the way, I’ve never felt more confident about my decision making skills than during this pandemic —
Kara Swisher
Because?
Chelsea Handler
Because one word that will never come out of my mouth is homeschool.
Kara Swisher
Oh.
Chelsea Handler
And I don’t want to toot my own horn, but beep beep, because I did not have to deal with that.
Kara Swisher
I have children, so please.
Chelsea Handler
I can’t imagine.
Kara Swisher
It’s a lot. Let me just say, it was a lot. It was a lot. So you yourself, though, how do you reflect on things you’ve said in the past? Because you’ve said some racially offensive things in the past. You tweeted a joke at the Oscars about how Angelina Jolie was filing adoption paperwork for Lupita Nyong’o. You’ve done a bunch about Angelina Jolie and things like that. So how do you look at certain jokes that you used to tell? Would you not tell them now? Do you think it’s impossible for a comic to do stuff like that anymore?
Chelsea Handler
No, I mean, listen, there’s an evolution with everybody. And the problem with a lot of these men that have been canceled is they’re not sincerely apologizing, you know? My therapy, my whole thing has been on public record. I’m not pretending or faking or saying, “Oh, I’m sorry,” after the fact. I actually have had an evolution. I do want to be kinder and gentler. I want my jokes to not be reflective of a time in my life that I wasn’t aware of how they impact people. Your words are powerful, especially someone like me, who has a very big mouth. People that do, do that, you can forgive them. You do understand that Chrissy Teigen’s situation, she admitted her bad behavior. She said, “I’m really sorry.” And that’s what we should all be doing when confronted with anything we’ve done, is say, “I’m sorry. Thank you for letting me know. I’m going to do better,” period, end of story.
Kara Swisher
It’s interesting because you once said you’d never apologize publicly for a joke. And you’ve obviously changed your opinion. In fact, in your latest special “Evolution,” you told a story about apologizing to a Black performer who you smacked on the butt. And you apologized after posting a clip of Louis Farrakhan after your critics pointed out his history of anti-Semitism.
Chelsea Handler
Well, no, I mean, again, I apologize because I needed to apologize. I saw one message in that video, and I thought, oh, this message is so powerful, without taking into consideration the context of Louis Farrakhan and everything that he did and all of his anti-Semitism. So clearly, I misstepped. And yeah, I do apologize now because that saying I don’t ever apologize is my old self, being an asshole. That’s stupid, too.
Kara Swisher
Can comedy stay as sharp if people are doing that? I know a lot of comics, if they can’t go to the very edge, if they can’t be outrageous, that’s a problem.
Chelsea Handler
I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s a problem. I don’t think your outrageousness has to come from something that’s going to get you in trouble. You can be outrageous within the confines of not offending other people. The thing about being a comedian is you have a very strong point of view. And that’s why people come to see you. So that’s where the good stuff is going to happen.
Kara Swisher
But when you think about this idea, does it change comedy?
Chelsea Handler
No, I don’t think complaining as a comedian about not being able to say stuff is a responsible way to move forward. You have to think about more clever ways to say the things that you want to say. Who wouldn’t be up for a challenge like that?
Kara Swisher
Right, so I want to talk about some other comedians that have had to deal with this. For example, should Roseanne Barr have been, I guess, canceled, I guess if that’s sweet, but I think she sort of was, after she tweeted a racist joke citing a “Planet of the Apes” meme when discussing Valerie Jarrett, who is Black and a former advisor to Obama? How did you look at that?
Chelsea Handler
Yeah, that was pretty despicable. I mean, there’s really no room for that kind of racism at all, from an entertainer no less. So that was bad. That was icky.
Kara Swisher
What about someone like Kevin Hart? You defended him after he was criticized for homophobic remarks. He did apologize, as I recall.
Chelsea Handler
Well, yeah, Kevin did apologize. And yeah. And I love Kevin because he understands why that was homophobic. And I think I’ve spoken to him about this very topic. And yeah, and he kind of came — that’s all you have to do, is come to the table and go, shit, I’m an idiot. I wasn’t thinking this through. I mean, obviously, it’s not all you have to do. You have to mean it.
Kara Swisher
Right, right, absolutely. So now Ellen DeGeneres faced accusations of a toxic work environment, mostly by her producers. She’s ending her talk show now. How did you look at that?
Chelsea Handler
Well, I mean, I can only speak from my own experience. I’ve done talk shows for a total of 10 years. It’s always a better healthy work environment when the boss is in the room all the time and has the door open all the time. So I mean, actually, I just guest hosted a couple of episodes, but I don’t work with Ellen. I don’t work on set with her. So I don’t know. I mean, I guess her ending the show does feel like the end of a certain type of error, you know? Era. I said error.
Kara Swisher
Yeah, possibly an error.
Chelsea Handler
Yeah, yeah, we’ll go over our words later.
Kara Swisher
Yeah, in May, you said you were interested in hosting a talk show again. Would you want to do that? I don’t know if replace Ellen is really a thing.
Chelsea Handler
I mean, I’m not actively pursuing doing another talk show. But I’m smart enough now to be open-minded and not shut the door on things because I end up eating my words. So there’s a chance I may end up hosting a talk show, and I don’t even know about it yet. So I’m keeping that open.
Kara Swisher
So what do you think the modern talk show is?
Chelsea Handler
Yeah, that’s a great question. Yeah, I think now it’s just a very transactional thing. You need to go on to promote, they need you on — blah, blah, blah. But our celebrities now, there was such a mystique because there wasn’t social media, right? There was intrigue.
Kara Swisher
Yeah, now they never shut up.
Chelsea Handler
Yeah, now you know everything about everyone. So I don’t know that interviewing celebrities is the most fascinating thing. On “Dear Chelsea,” my podcast that I just launched, I have —
Kara Swisher
It’s an advice podcast, correct?
Chelsea Handler
Yeah, I have an advice podcast, which is a joke. But I love to give out advice. And I have very strong will. And I got to tell you, talking to real people, I love. I love learning from somebody. So I don’t know if a modern day talk show is about celebrities. And I think that’s why podcasts are so popular because they’re not just straight up celebrity interviews.
Kara Swisher
Right, speaking of celebrities, we’ve seen pushback recently around Britney Spears. She’s given this testimony about her conservatorship. You, for many years, have said she should be joked about. How do you look at joking about Britney Spears now?
Chelsea Handler
Oh, God. Are you kidding? Britney Spears, this is heartbreaking with her father and this. I mean, if there’s ever been a definition of white male patriarchy that a judge puts her in the custody of her father, no man should ever be in charge of any woman. I mean, I know there is a woman co-conservator now, but that’s a new addition. It’s sick. It’s sickening. There’s nothing funny about it to me. You can’t make fun of Britney Spears. She’s lost control of her — she has no liberty. [MUSIC PLAYING]
Kara Swisher
We’ll be back in a minute.
If you like this interview and want to hear others, follow us on your favorite podcast app. You’ll be able to catch up on Sway episodes you may have missed, like my conversation with Desus and Mero, and you’ll get new ones delivered directly to you. More with Chelsea Handler after the break.
So are you beyond what you talked about, which was Trump derangement syndrome, essentially? You would run into the airport lounge, which I thought was hysterical, and yell at the Fox News watchers. I do that to my mom still today to this moment. How did you get rid of that, though? Because I think it still exists for a lot of people.
Chelsea Handler
Oh, yeah, I mean, we have post-traumatic Trump disorder, PTTD now. So it still exists, but it was a great setting off point I think for a lot of people. Because for one thing, yes, it was miserable. And obviously, if we could take it back, I would do anything in a second not to have had that history in this country. But it all is necessary for us to recognize with Trump, I had something to be angry about. I had something to hang my anger on. So all of my bitchiness and my anger and everything could be directed at something. I was like, him. That’s what I hate about this world. Whereas that’s not really who I was mad at. I had a lot of stuff underneath that.
Kara Swisher
Right, you talked about in “Evolution,” you talked about the devastating death of your brother.
Chelsea Handler
Oh, yeah, I was mad at my brother for dying. I was mad at my father for his reaction to my brother’s death. So I have an issue with trusting men and believing them and not thinking that they’re going to abandon me, even though on an intellectual level, I understand that death isn’t an abandonment. As a nine-year-old little girl, you don’t really have that delineation. You don’t understand the nuance. You just think you’ve been rejected again or lied to.
Kara Swisher
Right, now one of the things that I thought was more devastating was your father’s reaction when you were swimming. I thought that was even worse than a lot of ways to turn around and turn his back on you at a moment when you needed help, when you needed obvious help.
Chelsea Handler
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I was the center of my whole family’s universe in my mind before my brother died. And then my brother died shockingly hiking in Wyoming. On a hiking trip, he just slipped and fell. And you watch everyone in your family kind of retreat to their own corners of grief. Because at that time, my family wasn’t going to go to a therapist. My parents weren’t down with that. So everyone just kind of repaired themselves. My mom and dad handled it completely differently. And my mom was aware that there could be joy while you’re grieving, that there could be pain and happiness at the same time. And my father couldn’t. He was like, no, no, no, I’m going to be miserable for the rest of my life until I find somebody to blame for my son’s death.
Kara Swisher
Three things that help you personally — therapy, meditation, and weed. So tell me about how weed has changed your life.
Chelsea Handler
Well, weed was the gateway for my meditation. Weed was the gateway drug to get me to sit down and shut up. I would try to meditate with my therapist. I would sit there. And he would just say things that made my vagina clench shut. I was like, ugh. He would be like — and I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t achieve the thing that everyone talked about. But I feel like the introduction of cannabis and the kind of diminution of alcohol, it’s just made me calmer and easier. I’m just more mellow. I don’t give a shit. I don’t want to yell at somebody or get into a fight with somebody in traffic. I don’t have the energy for that ever. So it did help me meditate.
Kara Swisher
Gateway.
Chelsea Handler
I meditate at the —
Kara Swisher
Gateway to meditation.
Chelsea Handler
Yeah, it was a gateway drug.
Kara Swisher
So what is the regimen? Is it like a morning joint instead of a morning coffee or what?
Chelsea Handler
Sometimes. Sometimes I’ll take a little hit of weed in the morning. Sometimes I won’t. I don’t really drink coffee because I have way too much energy as it is. But I get up, I definitely meditate every morning. That’s before I have a joint. And then sometimes I just kind of have it throughout the day. I’ll take an edible, or I’ll smoke a little weed, just to kind of mellow me out. Or if I’m going to be with friends and I want to be giggly, then there’s a different kind of weed I smoke for that. Or I’ll take some chocolate mushroom. I love mushroom chocolate microdosing. That puts a pep in your step, too. So I kind of just use all the things that help me be softer. Because I don’t need any more edge. That’s already there. So I just want tools that help me kind of be sweet and kind and nice to people.
Kara Swisher
What did you take before this interview?
Chelsea Handler
Oh, I had a hit of my little one-hitter outside before, like a half hour before this. First I had to get my eyelashes installed —
Kara Swisher
Dosist.
Chelsea Handler
— this morning.
Kara Swisher
OK, that’s more important.
Chelsea Handler
No, not a dosist. [LAUGHS] No, dosist is a vape pen. So I don’t smoke vape pens.
Kara Swisher
Oh, I don’t know. I don’t do drugs.
Chelsea Handler
I just —
Kara Swisher
I don’t do any drugs. I don’t.
Chelsea Handler
You should.
Kara Swisher
I’ve never done it my whole —
Chelsea Handler
You should. Well, that’s why you’re so sharp, Kara.
Kara Swisher
No, I just never have since my whole life, my whole life. It was a joke in high school. I’d never take — I’ve never seen cocaine. And people thought I had a cocaine addiction just because I was so —
Chelsea Handler
They did?
Kara Swisher
Yeah, I went back to college, and they’re like, “You took a lot of cocaine in college.” I’m like, “I’ve never seen it, except in the pages of Time Magazine.” I’ve never actually physically seen cocaine.
Chelsea Handler
Oh, wow, look at you.
Kara Swisher
I know, never. I don’t drink either.
Chelsea Handler
Really? Well, alcohol is poison anyway, so you’re good on skipping that. But yeah, I would just prescribe you with a light edible for times when you just really want to relax or take a load off when it’s after 8 o’clock at night, and you just really want chill out. That’s what I would prescribe to you, but I know that you’re not going to take it.
Kara Swisher
So you wrote an op-ed for Time Magazine in April about marijuana decriminalization and how cannabis laws disproportionately punish people of color. Why is this something you’re politically passionate about?
Chelsea Handler
This is a perfect example of the system of how it displaces so many people of color. I had personal experience with this growing up. I had a Black boyfriend. And we got caught three times in high school with a dime bag. And he was arrested, and I was let go. They said, go back to wherever your neighborhood is. And at the time, I was 15 or 16, and I didn’t give it much thought. But as I got older and started to understand how this country was built and all the systems that we have in place that are built by white men deciding what’s best for everybody, you start to get a little bit more zealous about how you’re going to contribute to something, especially if I’m planning on making a profit off of something, which is cannabis. I am launching a cannabis brand at some point. It hasn’t happened yet. But it’s still in the works. And we’ve had a bunch of hiccups because of Covid and stuff. So I am, but I won’t do anything like that without having proceeds go to one of these decarceration funds that are out there that help people actually, A, get the legal money to argue their case and get these people released from prison who are spending 10 to 20-year sentences for carrying marijuana, something that white men get away with all the time, something that I got sent home for when I was 16.
Kara Swisher
What is your brand going to be called?
Chelsea Handler
Yeah, I can’t reveal the name. But it’s for women. I want women to be emboldened and empowered the way that men are emboldened and empowered to use cannabis. It’s a medicine, and it helps so many people in this world with anxiety, with sleep. And I want to help destigmatize that.
Kara Swisher
All right, speaking of business, I want to get your take on what’s happening in the streaming wars. So you have a unique point of view here because you were with Netflix for two seasons for your show, “Chelsea.” You were one of the early people doing that. And you did a Netflix documentary in 2019. Last year, you brought your standup special to HBO Max. I’d love to understand what’s happening here for talent in dealing with all these companies like Amazon, Hulu, Apple TV. What’s it like now to be talent with all these competing platforms?
Chelsea Handler
I mean, it’s great. There’s a lot of places to go. And there’s a lot of really exciting platforms that are opening. And I think the important thing as a piece of talent is to diversify, right? I was at a deal for Netflix. I did a documentary series with them. Then I did the “Hello, Privilege” and my shows and a standup special. So it’s natural to want to kind of spread that around. But it is an exciting time because the landscape is changing so drastically so fast. And they’re all so competitive with each other. So it’s a good time to have a good piece of IP and to be pitching something that you know is a home run.
Kara Swisher
Did you not want to stay with Netflix? Netflix has been signing up a lot of talent, obviously, from Shonda Rhimes to Ryan Murphy to others. Was there a reason like how you move along or that you didn’t put “Evolution” on Netflix, for example?
Chelsea Handler
I had a deal at Netflix. So when that ended, that just ended. That was always the way it was set up. We didn’t talk about extending it further. And when I did do my standup special, Netflix was invited to come see it. I think I just ended up at HBO Max. I think Netflix did make an offer, but we ended up at HBO Max because I guess — I don’t know — it was probably a better offer.
Kara Swisher
Yeah, so when you think about them all — Amazon, Hulu, Apple TV, now Disney, Warner with HBO Max, and then there’s Paramount, too — there’s Peacock. Do you stack rank them in any way?
Chelsea Handler
Well you think about it in a marketing standpoint, right? And I think that was one of the things with HBO Max was they knew this was an important special for me, that this was a departure for me. So it was important for me to be somewhere new to kind of match the creative on it. But also, they have a slate that allows them to promote things for long periods of time, instead of just out and about. So I think that’s something you take into consideration when you’re going to any of these services. How are they going to promote your project? Because you can’t just put something out and only use your social media to promote it. I mean, you can try, but it doesn’t always work that way.
Kara Swisher
Because the Netflix carousel is pretty full. But things do pop out, of course. When you’re thinking about how to market yourself and to be part of the system, is there too much content out there? And secondly, I was on a panel yesterday at Banff talking about how people get paid. Everything has changed in terms of how people get paid, getting paid upfront versus residuals versus this and that. Is that a particularly confusing time for talent and producers?
Chelsea Handler
To be honest, the money aspect of it is not my forte because I’m a creative. So I let my agents and managers explain that to me in the most diluted possible way. All of these different places have different things to offer. So it’s like, what are they going to say to you that’s going to marry the deal for you to stay there? Having a standup special being promoted by HBO Max was very alluring to me. Because Netflix has so many standup specials that it was like, OK, well, what are they going to do for you, you know? So there’s a definite promotional aspect that is important for us all to pay attention to.
Kara Swisher
So tech companies, obviously, are trying to get in this race of content. Do you see social media as a content distribution platform? Or is it just a testing ground, an advertising platform for you?
Chelsea Handler
They can be a content distribution platform. I think a lot of people are using it in that way. But I think it’s a blending of the two for sure.
Kara Swisher
You’re on TikTok and Twitter.
Chelsea Handler
I am. I’m on Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, all of it. And, you know —
Kara Swisher
How do you look at each of them?
Chelsea Handler
Differently. Instagram is definitely your life, your lifestyle, your business. I launched my tour there. TikTok is more of a soundbite, kind of like your comments on something or your reaction to something or videos. It’s not pictures. They’re not pretty necessarily. It’s just kind of like in the moment. And Twitter’s for politics for me. That’s where I read my news, and that’s where I comment on the asinine shit that Republicans are trying to pull off when I have the energy to do so.
Kara Swisher
Yeah, but now you don’t because you’re in a better position and you’re on weed.
Chelsea Handler
Yeah, I don’t go off as much.
Kara Swisher
So technology has been disrupting comedy in a lot of ways. There’s more discovery and things like that. But who do you look at as the gatekeepers now? If you were just starting right now, how would you look at the scene as an up and coming comic?
Chelsea Handler
As a comic? Oh, God, who are the gatekeepers? Uh —
Kara Swisher
Sort of like late night TV used to be or comedy clubs or this and that.
Chelsea Handler
Yeah, it doesn’t feel like that’s the scene anymore. First of all, you can’t get away with people being gatekeepers in that way right now. That’s not the tone of what’s happening. When I was coming up, people would yell at you, like you can’t perform here. Or give you bad feedback, like you’re too pretty to be a comedian. You should get your breasts reduced. That’ll make people take you more seriously, stupid shit like that you can’t say. Yeah, I once had a woman told me I should get a breast reduction if I wanted to do standup. I was like, what? So there are no gatekeepers anymore. And I just announced this tour. And I went straight to my agents and said, “Find me a bunch of undiscovered people to have open for me. I want to be bridging the gap and giving newcomers a new experience.” And I feel like that’s what we’re all doing. Hire people of color whenever you can. Have a person of color open for you. Do everything you can —
Kara Swisher
Or women.
Chelsea Handler
— to be sharing. Always women, yeah. Always with me. I had a guy had a guy on a plane the other day asked if he could open for me, and I wanted to be like, sir, I don’t have men open for me, OK? I’m a woman supporting women, not men. But I didn’t. I kept that to myself because I’ve been to therapy, Kara. And I was able to shut my mouth.
Kara Swisher
What would the old Chelsea have said?
Chelsea Handler
I’d have been like, hey, asshole, I’m not having your fucking dumbass open for me when I could have a fucking woman of color open for me.
Kara Swisher
Oh, I like seeing old Chelsea a little bit, a little bit. I still like old Chelsea, too, just so you know.
Chelsea Handler
Don’t worry. Old Chelsea is still here. Don’t worry, Kara.
Kara Swisher
All right. OK, it comes out.
Chelsea Handler
Sometimes I just have to be a little bit more serious. Otherwise, people won’t take me seriously at all.
Kara Swisher
OK, that’s fair. That’s fair. So you’re talking to sort of a very different comedy universe. Where is it going next? It’s a big question, but if you had to say, what’s going to be really funny going forward? What do you imagine it’s going to be?
Chelsea Handler
I think we’re going to get into a real silliness. I think it’s going to be silly funny. It’s not about cutting and hurting and sharp edges right now. It’s about letting loose. There’s a release, a global release and relief coming. And I want to play into that. So I think the sharp and the biting and all of that is going to take a timeout. It’ll be back, obviously. But this is a time for joy and celebration. So I’m focusing on that and being positive vibe and also telling men to get their fucking shit together before this is over. I had a guy ask me the other day, “Well, can we still open the door for you?” I was like, you know what? It’s questions like that. Yes, yes, you guys have been raping us since the beginning of time. So the least you could fucking do is open the door. That’s the least you could do. And don’t ask questions that are that defensive. When we’re telling you that we’ve been treated unfairly forever, your answer can’t be like, “Well, can we open the door for you?” I mean, that’s the kind of shit I’m dealing with. [MUSIC PLAYING]
