Win tickets to see Chelsea Handler in Orlando or Tampa!
What’s Chelsea Handler up to lately? Turns out, a whole helluva lot.
There’s her E! Entertainment series, Chelsea Lately, airing weeknights at 11 p.m. The tongue-in-cheek look at entertainment news and hot topics of the day is consistently the network’s highest-rated program. There’s her trio of books—My Horizontal Life, Are You There Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea, and Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang—that have topped the New York Times Best Seller list. There’s her supporting role in the upcoming film This Means War, currently shooting. (“It’s a McG-directed movie, so it’s kind of an action movie and then it goes into kind of a romantic comedy,” Handler says. “I play Reese Witherspoon’s best friend, so basically I’m just playing myself.”) And there’s her headlining comedy tour, which stops at Orlando’s Amway Center on Friday, Oct. 22, and Tampa’s Straz Center on Saturday, Oct. 23.
Oh, and just last month she became only the second woman ever to solo-host the MTV Video Music Awards. Just thinking about it all makes us tired.
But Handler thrives on the diversity of her life. When it comes to her show she prefers to have friends on (Leah Rimini, Jenny McCarthy, Jennifer Aniston, to name a few) because, as Handler puts it, “It’s not like work, it’s like screwing around. And I love having rappers on. They just get me, they understand me. We just have some sort of connection.”
The connections don’t end there, though.
“They’re like gay guys. Like, black people and gay people have the best senses of humor. They can laugh the loudest at everything, and that’s what I love. I like people who don’t take themselves seriously.”
One thing Handler does take seriously is equal rights for gays and lesbians. In March 2009, Handler was named an Ally for Equality by the Human Rights Campaign. The award recognizes the outstanding efforts of those who dedicate time, energy, spirit and whole-hearted commitment to the LGBT community, as Handler frequently shines a spotlight on injustices faced by gays and lesbians on her show. Later that year she also served as grand marshal for the Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade.
With a proud declaration of “I love me some gays,” Handler was more than willing to talk to Watermark about her LGBT connections…as well as men’s beach attire, and what she will—and won’t—be doing when she visits Central Florida next week.
Watermark: This may sound like an odd way to put this, but where does your background or association with the gay community come from?
Chelsea Handler: I think it’s just being really open-minded and seeing people who are struggling growing up and feeling like they don’t fit in, feeling left out, or they don’t cut the mustard in many ways. I think its something a lot of people go through. I think I just have a strong sense of understanding what that was like.
Anyone else kind of going down that path is appealing to me, to try to help and try to get the word out. I say it all the time and I really mean it. Don’t ever be ashamed of who you are. You just have to be who you are and be proud of it. And don’t pretend to be something that you’re not. The sooner you’re truthful about it the sooner your life starts.
There are a lot of female comics—Joan Rivers, Margaret Cho, Kathy Griffin—who have a dedicated gay fan base. Chelsea, what do you bring to the gay table?
You know, I’m not setting out to get a gay audience. I have a lot of gay people in my life, so it’s important to me to be very vocal about it. I don’t know what I bring to the gay community, but I know what they bring to me. I try to do everything I can to get the message out, and to constantly talk about the topics on my show when there is a topic available. Like the other night with this Republican candidate running for governor in New York, that was a great time for us to talk about it.
I like to be involved, I don’t necessarily like to jump on the bus with everybody else, I like to do my own thing, like make a video instead of a public service announcement. So whenever I can, I try to think of creative ways to do that.
I missed that episode, but Carl Paladino is on my list of topics to talk with you about.
He was saying that homosexuals should be ashamed about what they’re doing. He doesn’t think that’s a great way to live your life. He’s got nothing against it but he doesn’t want to encourage children to go out and think that that’s a possibility; they can’t grow up and get married and have normal families (by being gay). Yeah, they can’t grow up and get married and have normal families because of people like him who won’t allow that to happen. Obviously he’s never going to win in a state like New York, but I’m really glad he said what he said because it gives everyone an open avenue for discussion about it.
He was berating his opponent for appearing at the New York City Pride Parade with his children, that there were men there in Speedos grinding against each other and he finds that disgusting. You were the grand marshal of the Los Angeles Pride Parade two years ago…
Yeah, I was.
Did you get to see men in Speedos grinding?
I get to see that quite often.
And did you find it disgusting?
No, it takes a lot to really kind of gross me out.
Maybe while you’re here in Florida—what with all the beaches here—we can arrange a special swimsuit fashion show for you….
Actually any man in a Speedo kind of disgusts me, whether he’s gay or straight. There was a man I saw last year at the Super Bowl (in Miami) who I’m hoping to see again at the Super Bowl, even though it’s in a different locale. I’m hoping he’ll fly to a beach in Dallas and show up there. He was an older man in a Speedo. I had to take a picture and then I Tweeted it.
We gays love our gossip so I wonder if you have any backstage dish from hosting the VMAs.
No, I don’t. I was too busy getting ready for everything, so I don’t have anything for you.
Damn!
I had to run back and forth all around, so I didn’t see that many people until the after-party. And I don’t remember anything after that. We were too busy celebrating, we had such a fun night, and the after-party was ridiculous.
You’re only the second woman to host the VMAs solo behind Roseanne Barr. Are you following in her footsteps? Any plans to sing the national anthem at a ball game anytime soon?
No, but I threw out the first pitch at a Chicago Cubs game a couple of weeks ago. I asked them particularly not to sing, specifically because she got booed. My singing voice isn’t that much better than hers, although I probably wouldn’t have grabbed my crotch.
I have another show coming out called After Lately which is a behind-the-scenes look about what goes on here when the cameras are off. It comes out next year. I started a book imprint called “Borderline Amazing Books,” and the first book comes out next year. It’s called Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me, and it’s people in the office, my brothers and sisters and old friends are all contributing entrees about ways I’ve screwed them over and lies I’ve told them over the years, so that should be pretty good.
You haven’t screwed over any gay journalists, have you?
No, but I’ve gotten screwed over by a gay journalist!
Now there’s some dish! Tell me!
This guy was awful. He followed me around Seattle for an entire weekend and then wrote a terrible story about me after he got shitfaced and passed out in my hotel room!
Well, it wasn’t a terrible story, I shouldn’t exaggerate. But after the things I did for that guy to help him, I could have gotten him fired! I gave him a ride home in the plane I had chartered…which is completely inappropriate to do…(laughs). And then he had the audacity to write an article about me that was not…it was good…but it should have been a lot better!
I promise to write only good things about you. When you’re here do you get any free time? Any tourist-y things or theme park trips?
It’s kind of hectic when I come in. I don’t get to have much social time, it’s a crazy schedule, so no, I’m not going to any theme park.
That’s too bad.
Well, not really. Because that’s the last thing I want to do with my free time. Theme parks are kind of my worst nightmare.
