Chelsea, Finally

Comedian Chelsea Handler takes on Letterman, Leno, and O'Brien. Can she handle it? by Kate Torgovnick


Photography by ©Globe Photos

"Let's try a polite laugh and clap," says a guy wearing a headset. The 75-person audience snickers before fading into applause. "Now a gut-busting laugh, like Chelsea's said something really funny," he commands. The audience lets loose. Two-thirds are female, mostly gorgeous, and with five minutes to go before a taping of Chelsea Lately, Chelsea Handler's hit late-night show, they seem comfortable laughing on command. Not that they'll need much goading. This is laugh-out-loud television.

A comedian, writer and television personality, 32-year-old Chelsea Handler has built a rabid following since she first broke onto the comedy club circuit seven years ago. She's held down two television series (Girls Behaving Badly and the Chelsea Handler Show), written two memoirs (My Horizontal Life and Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea), and become a regular guest on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Her newest endeavor, Chelsea Lately, launched in July and E! has ordered episodes through the end of 2007.

Chelsea is known for broadcasting the horribly embarrassing details of her life, the ones most of us lock away and never tell anyone. Like the time she hooked up with a midget, or when she ran into a former fling and pretended she had a twin sister. Chelsea Lately continues her over-sharing. It's like an absurd conversation with a good friend - you almost forget that millions of other people are watching.

Chelsea seems almost giddy emerging from her dressing room after wrapping the episode. She flashes a smile with crater-like dimples and sits down in her usual chair, motioning for me to take the one normally reserved for guests. She wears a chocolate brown shirt, tight jeans and knee-high boots, and her blonde hair flips out like an updated Mary Tyler Moore. On a jumbo screen behind us, the New York skyline moves by at warp speed. Which is odd, since the show's based in Los Angeles. "It's the streets of LA, and the skyscrapers of New York," she says, laughing. "I have nothing to do with that. I let other people decide. I have to focus on Britney."

Like every other pop culture show, Chelsea Lately has been gorging on Britney Spears for months. "It would be nice, once in a while, if Britney didn't do something," says Chelsea. "Luckily in the last few days Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen had that thing going on and Pam Anderson and Rick Solomon hooked up. Yes, new drama."

 

Despite being an active participant in tabloid culture, Chelsea worries like the rest of us that America has gotten way too celebrity-obsessed. "It's ridiculous that you go to a supermarket and there's 15 magazines draped with the same stories," she says. "Unfortunately, it gives me a job. "Chelsea Lately is at an interesting crossroads of celebrity culture. While A-listers and scandal mavens are discussed in a round table at the beginning of every show, Chelsea's guests are C-list and proud -Janice Dickinson, Shar Jackson, Howie Mandel. "I like anyone who has a sense of humor about themselves," she explains. "I would love to have Paula Abdul on and ask her, 'What happened?� See if I could get K-Fed to take her dogs since she shouldn't be raising anything. I'd love to have K-Fed on. Reality stars are fun if they have a sense of humor. But if they take themselves too seriously, I'm only going to look mean."

Chuy is Chelsea's little person co-host on Chelsea Lately. "They brought him in 'cause they know I love little people," she explains. "He had no qualifications and still doesn't. He's a terrible assistant. He's lazy, he talks back. If he wasn't so fucking cute, he wouldn't have a job."

She co-opts Chuy for her many sketches, the best part of the show. Chelsea is most at ease on the fly, interacting with people rather than reading off a teleprompter (where her eyes sometimes get beady- 'crazy eyes' as a producer calls it). In pre-recorded segments, she spoofs everyone from television journalists to celebrity rehab centers. In one bit that's been recycled on YouTube, Chelsea and Chuy go to a funeral parlor, where a salesman seems a little too excited to show her caskets for her 'first funeral.'

 


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