Chelsea Joy Handler is an American comedian, actress, writer, television host, producer and activist. She hosted the late-night talk show “Chelsea Lately” on the E! network from 2007 to 2014, and released a documentary series, “Chelsea Does,” on Netflix in January 2016. Take a look below for 30 more fun and interesting facts about Chelsea Handler.
1. Handler was born in Livingston, New Jersey, the youngest of six children of Rita, a homemaker, and Seymour Handler, a used car dealer.
2. Her American father is Ashkenazi Jewish; her German-born mother, who came to the United States in 1958, was a Mormon.
3. Her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1989, and battled the disease for over 15 years before dying of it in 2006.
4. Handler was raised in Reform Judaism and had a Bat Mitzvah ceremony.
5. She summered in Martha’s Vineyard, where her parents owned a house.
6. Handler has two sisters and three brothers; her eldest brother, Chet, died when he was 21, in a hiking accident in the Grand Tetons in Wyoming.
7. At age 19, she moved from New Jersey to Los Angeles, California, where she lived in her aunt’s home, in Bel Air, and pursued acting while working as a waitress to support herself.
8. At 21, Handler decided to pursue stand-up comedy after telling her story about driving under the influence to a class of other offenders, who found it funny.
9. Handler was a member of the all-female cast of Oxygen’s hidden camera reality television series “Girls Behaving Badly,” which aired from 2002 to 2005.
10. She hosted the first episode of the reality TV show “On the Lot,” but quit before the second episode aired, saying later that she left “because I smelled the disaster happening before it did.”
11. In April 2006, Handler began hosting “The Chelsea Handler Show” on E!, which lasted two seasons.
12. In 2007, Handler performed with Comedy Central’s Hour Stand-Up Comedy Tour across the United States.
13. On August 18, 2010, it was announced that Handler would be the host of the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs).
14. In July 2007, Handler began starring on her own half-hour, late-night comedy series on E! titled “Chelsea Lately.” The show proved to be a hit by averaging more than a half-million viewers since its premiere (much more than the average for a late night cable program) and having clips on YouTube with more than one million views.
15. In 2007, Handler appeared in the Internet-based program “In the Motherhood” with Leah Remini and Jenny McCarthy, since January 2008.
16. Handler has written five books that have made the New York Times Best Seller List, four of which have reached number one.
17. Her first book, “My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands”, describes the variety of sexual encounters she has experienced throughout her life.
18. Her second book, “Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea”, a collection of humorous essays, hit the top of The New York Times Nonfiction Best Seller List on May 11, 2008, with a print run of more than 350,000.
19. She went on a nationwide tour to promote her third book, titled “Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang,” which was released on March 9, 2010.
20. In May 2009, she was the host of the 20th Annual GLAAD Media Awards in San Francisco.
21. In early 2014, Handler released the book “Uganda Be Kidding Me,” which was number one on The New York Times Best Seller list for two weeks and in the middle of the year did the standup show “Uganda Be Kidding Me: Live,” which was then released on Netflix in October 2014.
22. In 2010, Handler was ranked on the Forbes Celebrity 100 at No. 98.
23. In 2012, Time named Handler one of the 100 most influential people in the world on their annual Time 100 list.
24. In 2006, Handler began dating Ted Harbert, who oversaw E! as the former CEO of Comcast.
25. On January 25, 2010, Handler confirmed, via her late-night talk show, that she had broken up with Harbert. The same year, a leaked sex tape of Handler was being offered for sale.
26. In a 2011 interview in The New York Times, Handler revealed that she had an abortion when she was 16, saying she had the procedure “because that’s what I should have done. Otherwise I would now have a 20-year-old kid. Anyway, those are things that people shouldn’t be dishonest about.”
27. In a 2016 interview with Playboy magazine, Handler revealed that she had a second abortion when she was 16 in addition to the one she talked about with The New York Times.
28. On October 3, 2013, Handler confirmed her breakup with her boyfriend hotelier Andre Balazs on her talk show “Chelsea Lately,” after the couple had dated on and off for two years.
29. Handler was a vocal supporter of the 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and was critical of her opponent Donald Trump.
30. In 2010, Handler reportedly attended a dinner party at Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan mansion. This was soon after Epstein was released from a 13 month jail sentence for soliciting prostitution from children.
