Photo: Mark DeLong
Chelsea Handler’s running late. Well, not really. She’s running late to the revised time of the interview, which is a half-hour earlier than the original time. So she’s running…exactly on time, which might not be what you would expect from a comedian whose onstage persona tends toward the profane and uncompromising, taking other people’s rules and breaking them. Offstage, though, she is relaxed and open, happy to discuss her youth in New Jersey and the career as a comedian, author, and actress that frequently discusses that youth.
The occasion is twofold, at least—she has a new comedy special, The Feeling, that premiered on Netflix in late March on the heels of her most recent New York Times-bestselling book (seventh, if you’re counting), I’ll Have What She’s Having. Both titles refer either indirectly or directly to sexual satisfaction. This conversation also built to a peak.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
New Jersey Monthly: First of all, happy fairly recent birthday. You turned 50 in February. Before we move on to talk about New Jersey, I want to ask about your swimsuit ski runs. This is an event where people ski en masse in swimwear. You did one at Soldier Mountain for your birthday and then a world-record attempt at Tahoe after it?
Chelsea Handler: I did the one on my birthday, then I partnered with Gold Bond to do a larger one, where anyone who was interested could participate. We had 2,000 people registered, but then they had to close down the mountain because of a blizzard. There was only the bunny hill left. So it ended up being 700 people.
Did you set a world record?
They broke a different world record, I think.
Okay. Goodbye, Soldier Mountain and Tahoe. Hello, New Jersey. Was your family in the state for generations? Your mother was born in Germany, but what about your father’s side? Did they spend time in New York and then come out, or was it New Jersey all the way?
They were in New Jersey first. My grandmother emigrated to Newark. My grandfather had an auto business, a gas station and then some auto service. When my grandfather died, my dad took over the business. He started out with three gas stations and, because he was such a good businessman, he ended up with one.
Chelsea Handler, at the age of 5, in her hometown of Livingston. Photo: Courtesy of Chelsea Handler
In the new special, which we’ll get back to later, you say that you didn’t like growing up because “the thesis of childhood is so insulting.” Was this specific to New Jersey, or more general?
Childhood as a whole was pretty insulting. I didn’t like the idea that there were so many guardrails. I wanted to be a woman and do my own thing. I didn’t like being hamstrung by the idea that I was such a small little defenseless thing. It wasn’t mainly about geography.
Your parents tried various things to get you to buy in. One solution you talk about in the special took you out of state—it’s an East Coast van drive down to Disney World—but when you were in state, did your sense of insult let up?
Livingston wasn’t bad at all. It was my family. It was my parents. My dad was a used-car dealer. Our house was strewn with used cars. We had a circular driveway on Morningside Drive, and it was like the Sanford and Son of the neighborhood. We were living in an upper-middle-class neighborhood, but we stuck out like a sore thumb. That was a big problem. I always felt like if I had been put in charge of the family, we could compete.
There are all these stereotypes about New Jersey, many of them lazy. What’s the one you like the least?
The main one is when people say, “What exit are you from?” That’s the question that comes up over and over again. I didn’t live off the Turnpike, so I didn’t even have an exit. But people never stopped asking. It was the most annoying, repetitive thing, almost analogous to being asked what it’s like to be a woman in comedy.
So, scratch next question. New Jersey may have been just a place to grow up, but it’s also a unique place: close to New York, but not New York, with an attitude about that. Did it create you and your personality?
Oh, it definitely did. It brings a nice onion. Being in New Jersey means you’re salty, down and dirty. I’m a hustler because of New Jersey. I understood at a very early age what it means to hustle. I had an attitude. I still have that attitude.
Chelsea Handler as a teenager. Photo: Courtesy of Chelsea Handler
You have talked about how your high school in Livingston kept you out of their Hall of Fame as a result of your abortions—something they have denied. What’s your sense of the situation with them?
They thought I was too outspoken about the abortions, and that rubbed them the wrong way. I guess they’re okay with teenage pregnancy. But I barely graduated from high school, to be fair. I lived in Somerville for my junior year. I moved in with my brother. Things got carried away. I got in lots of trouble. I went back to Livingston, and they had an alternative program for people who were not able to function in the normal school program. I worked at my own pace and made up two years in a year. I think my parents figured, Let’s just get her graduated and get her the hell out of here. But I’m in the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
Definitely Sarah Suckabee Sanders.
How about Chris Christie?
Not Chris Christie. He went to Livingston High School, too. He’s in the Hall of Fame.
Your second book, Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea, got turned into a sitcom in the 2010s. The pilot was not set in New Jersey, but the show was.
I wanted the show to be reflective of New Jersey, the way the book was, since all of the stories took place there.
It was cast very innovatively. Laura Prepon played you, and you played your sister. Why was that?
Bob Greenblatt was running NBC then, and he wanted me to be in the show in some capacity. I was doing the Chelsea Lately show, and I did not have the bandwidth to be the star of the sitcom. Plus, I couldn’t. I was too old. So this was a fun way to be in it, to play my own sister.
Your dad on that show was played by Lenny Clarke, a Boston-area comedian and, maybe more importantly, a Martha’s Vineyard comedian. I know we’re focusing mostly on New Jersey, but I wanted to talk about the Vineyard for a second, since about half of your new special takes place there. You summered there for decades. How did that fit into your sense of things?
The Vineyard was the happy place of my childhood, the place where everything great happened. I remember it all: the five-hour drive from home, the ferry from Woods Hole. My family’s house was on the beach in Edgartown. It was a nice foil to my winter doldrums. I didn’t love going to school. I didn’t like the social aspect of school. I love learning, but I wasn’t a person who loved learning in school. So it was a reprieve every year.
Did you ever go there when it wasn’t summer?
The year I was in second grade, my mom wanted to go to the Vineyard in April. She took me out of school in New Jersey, and I attended the Edgartown School in the Vineyard for two months. After that, the school told me that if I stayed up there, I could skip something like three grades. That seemed like maybe that school wasn’t quite up to the standard of the school back home.
But if you skipped all those grades, you could have gotten done quicker.
True. My parents were not willing.
Okay. Let’s get off the island and get back to New Jersey. Your new special was filmed at the Wellmont Theater in Montclair. Is that a venue you picked for location? For affection?
Both. I love that venue, and it’s a nice one. I wanted to film in New Jersey because I talk so much about my childhood in this show.
Photo: Mark DeLong
Sean Baker, who directed Anora, which just won a bunch of Oscars, was a projectionist there when he was in high school. He’s a little older than you. Do you know him at all?
No, but I met him at Oscar parties. I spoke to him briefly, mostly to congratulate him.
I was going to ask about comedy influences anyway, but you get there in a big way in the final stretch of the special, with a New Jersey link, even. The story involves performing at the Borgata in Atlantic City as a young comic and being invited to meet Bill Cosby in his hotel room. I don’t want to spoil the story, but part of it involves this weird jet of venom coming out of Bill Cosby, which is different from the other weird jets we have heard about since. He starts yelling at the comedian who was opening for you, a man, about opening for a woman. Was it tough to have that kind of interaction with Cosby?
That was the first experience of learning not to meet my idols, and that was a big one. I worshipped him growing up. Meeting him was a huge disappointment, and the first of many. My two idols, as I say, were Woody Allen and Bill Cosby. My dad also turned out to be pretty disappointing. I remember meeting Chris Matthews once. My brother-in-law was obsessed with him, and he was a guest on the Tonight Show when I was, so I flew my brother-in-law out. Chris Matthews came backstage and was talking about how beautiful I am and how he was attracted. My brother-in-law was like, “Oh my God, he has a crush on you!”
Now that you are the famous person, how do you manage those expectations?
I don’t know. I don’t have too many expectations with regard to celebrity or fame. I have met so many, and I’m not really excited about any of it anymore. It’s part and parcel of things. So I’m acclimated both to the disappointments and the pleasant surprises.
But how about when you are either someone’s pleasant surprise or disappointment? Have you ever seen something online about an interaction that you thought was completely normal, and then a fan got a strange vibe?
I’m sure that’s happened, but I don’t spend a ton of time reading about myself online. I don’t find that to be of much value. I read articles about myself, but more from a journalistic standpoint. I’m sure plenty of people would say that they have had plenty of different experiences with me, most of them positive. I’m pretty nice in public. It’s in private that things get bad.
You have this great split career at this point, which is both performing your stories onstage and writing them in your books. You know how they ask songwriters whether it’s melody or lyrics first? Do you deal with these stories as written pieces first or as spoken bits of an act?
Usually something will happen, and I’ll tell a story, start sharing it with people. Based on their reactions, I’ll know whether it’s a story for the stage. Writing it in the book is different. You can provide so much more context and backstory. You can do that somewhat onstage, but you are looking for jokes and punchlines along the way. There’s also a difference in preparation. I don’t overthink my performances. I am very impromptu with them. With writing, it’s a different kind of art form. This most recent book was my sixth New York Times number one bestseller. I am incredibly appreciative for the fan base coming back to me. I think it’s because they know that I am telling my truth, regardless of whether it’s embarrassing.
You seem like a very creatively ambitious and driven person. Are there creative genres that you haven’t tried yet?
I think I want to do more acting than I have done in the past, stretch the muscles that I haven’t stretched. I am 50 now. It feels like a reset. I love my podcast, my standup, my books. Nobody tells me what to do or when to do it. I get to go to Europe when I want, which will happen later this year. I’ll be doing a Vegas residency. And I believe that the time off is as important as the time on. It creates the experiences that create the work. Whatever I do, it has to come from that. In my very first book, I talked about one-night stands. That was taboo. Nobody wanted to buy that in America. Everyone turned it down. I sold it to Bloomsbury, a British publisher. You would think they would be more uptight. But they published it and sold it to, like, 50 countries. Then America started printing it. Other books have been about drinking and drug use, about not wanting children. Whenever there’s a subject matter I feel passionate about, I speak about it, and it turns out that I’m speaking for millions of women. There are so many women who can now admit that they don’t think they are mother material, or that they like sleeping around. I want to talk about female freedom. That’s my vibe. I want women to feel empowered.
Let’s touch on politics, non-Cuomo politics. In your mind, what’s the biggest problem these days and how would you start solving it? Because the biggest problems are always the easiest to solve, of course.
Elon Musk should be removed from government—period. Beyond that, I am waiting for some mass mobilization and protest, some huge women’s march. I don’t know—what is happening is very dark and very uncomfortable. It feels like watching democracy fall. I am as concerned as the next person. But I try to focus on the positive and beautiful things without looking away from what concerns me.
I want to finish with some state-icon word association. I’ll just name some icons, and you give a quick reaction. Bruce Springsteen?
A-plus. I love him. I saw him in Milan last year and in Oslo the year before. I love him, and I was a late Springsteen bloomer. I only started really listening to him about four years ago.
Frank Sinatra?
I appreciate him and his music, but I’m not a fanatical fan.
Philip Roth?
I know lots about him. I have read books about him, and I have read his books. I appreciate his writing. His personal life is a different question.
Queen Latifah?
I love her. Who doesn’t love her? She’s Jersey magic.
She’s in the state Hall of Fame with you.
She’d better be.
That’s four New Jersey icons. Let’s end with you picking a fifth.
Oh, Jon Bon Jovi. He inducted me into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. He’s a great guy. I love him. That was the first concert I ever went to.
Ben Greenman is the author or coauthor of more than two dozen books and edited Unrequited Infatuations, the bestselling memoir by New Jersey icon Stevie Van Zandt.
Hair by Eduardo Ponce; makeup by Courtney Hart; styling by Molly Levin; wardrobe: Agolde T-shirt, Iro leather jacket.
-
Miranda Priestly Would Approve: ‘Devil Wears Prada 2’ Screens at AC’s Ocean Casino Resort
-
Mike ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino Reflects on Finding Purpose After Chaos
-
Jersey ‘Jeopardy!’ Champ Jamie Ding Talks Strategy, Princeton Pride and Keeping His Cool
-
Tom Perrotta and Christina Baker Kline Among Bestselling Authors to Speak at Montclair Literary Festival This May
