Chelsea Handler has spread positivity through her comedy, talk shows, and activism.
But she's also endured personal loss due to accidents and illness.
Still, she's remained resilient through it all.
This is her stunning transformation.
Born in Livingston, New Jersey, on February 25, 1975, Chelsea Joy Handler has a very fitting
middle name, as she would grow up to make the world laugh and inspire countless people
with her life story.
But her childhood wasn't easy.
The youngest of six siblings, she had to grow up fast.
Her father Seymour, who was a used car salesman, and her stay-at-home mom Rita faced constant
financial struggles, and young Chelsea could tell that they didn't have it all together.
As she told People Magazine in 2016,
"My parents were great, and there was a lot of love in our house, but they were kind of
hot messes."
"By the time they had me, they were just kind of wiped out."
Those financial woes and the tragic death of her older brother Chet when she was just
9 years old made life more complicated than any child should have to experience.
And with all the bullying she endured in high school, her teenage years weren't that much
better.
As she explained to Katie Couric in a 2010 interview for Glamour,
"I was tortured for a year in school by the older girls.
They didn't like the way I looked; I dated a guy that was a senior when I was a freshman.
And it was awful.
But I think bullies just need to be taught by their parents how to treat other people."
But, as Handler revealed to The Telegraph, the very people who used to bully her are
now the ones who come to her stand-up shows.
And instead of having security remove them from the premises, she doesn't appear to hold
any grudges.
As she put it,
"By the time you can have revenge and say, 'Haha,' you don't even care about them anymore."
Chelsea Handler has rarely allowed the opinions of others to dictate how she lives her life,
and it seems that this is a trait she's had since she was young.
A great example of this is the time she entered the Miss Teen New Jersey pageant.
In 2017, she shared a throwback photo on Instagram of herself at the pageant in which she is
dressed like a businesswoman, complete with a turtleneck and blazer.
Clearly, she'd already set some ambitious goals for herself in the future.
In a 2019 video for Vanity Fair, Handler was asked about the pageant while hooked up to
a lie detector test, and she admitted that she had "fond memories."
She ultimately didn't win, though she did finish in the top 15.
When asked why she entered, she answered in true Chelsea Handler fashion:
"For the recognition that I was beautiful, and that I could use an entire bottle of Aqua
Net on my head in one sitting, and go out in a prom dress or a gown or whatever the
f--- I wore, and kill it."
You don't always need a degree to be successful, and Chelsea Handler is proof.
In an essay she penned for LinkedIn titled "My journey from an academic reject to a semi-respectable,
self-educated adult," she explained how she "barely" graduated from high school and educated
herself by reading a ton of books instead of going to college.
As she put it,
"Secondary education more often comes from the classroom of life and we also owe ourselves
a never-ending adult education."
Although Handler was doing plenty to educate herself, that hardly means she was an overnight
success.
Instead, she started out like many aspiring artists in Los Angeles: by waiting tables
for almost half a decade.
As it turns out, working as a server has its benefits.
Handler even recommends that everyone should do so when they're young because it teaches
valuable life lessons you won't learn anywhere else.
As she put it to Women's Health in 2009,
"Everyone needs to see what it's like on the other side, so they know how to treat waiters
and waitresses."
"This is why I'm very sensitive to it, because I tip, like 500 percent when I go out when
I go out, because-" "Me, too."
"I know what it's like."
Working as a server provided Handler with the grit and resilience that ultimately kickstarted
her showbiz career.
She discovered the "power of showing up," and she's been using that tool ever since.
In a 2016 essay on LinkedIn, she revealed how during her early stand-up days, she would
occasionally perform a show for a non-existent crowd.
She would sometimes even hope that the gigs would be canceled so that she wouldn't have
to endure the humiliation.
But after a few failed shows, she decided to take a stand.
As she put it,
"I made an agreement with myself that I would show up, get up, and do my set, no matter
what the circumstance."
And she kept that promise, as she explained,
"When there were only two people in the audience at the Comedy Store at the 9 p.m. show, I
showed up and did 10 minutes of material every time I got the 9 p.m. slot.
(It turns out that if you can make two people laugh, then you can make two thousand people
laugh)."
Showing up for everything no matter what ultimately became a way of life for Handler, and she's
never looked back since.
Chelsea Handler had some relevant experience before she launched her own show at the age
of 31.
Most notably, in 2002, she served as one of the hosts of the Oxygen series Girls Behaving
Badly.
So four years later, she was ready to take the world by storm in the form of her own
sketch comedy series — The Chelsea Handler Show on the E! Network.
That lasted only one season, but the next year it was followed up by the talk show Chelsea
Lately, also on E!
Handler was immediately a force to be reckoned with on late-night TV, which at the time was
dominated by men.
But starting her own show wasn't really something she'd been planning on.
As she admitted to Marie Claire in 2010,
"I never really saw that coming.
I didn't become a comedian to work this hard."
A friend of Handler's, who later became her boyfriend, told her that she needed her own
show because of her "strong point of view."
But, as she explained,
"The only way I was going to be on E! was if I could make fun of E! and everyone on
those shows.
I thought, 'That would be a great job.'"
Well, that's exactly what she did, and people loved it so much that Chelsea Lately ran for
eight seasons.
Chelsea Handler loves to read.
In fact, one time during an interview with NPR conducted over Zoom, she appeared to be
in what looked like a home library.
And while her reading list mostly consists of serious books, the ones that she's written
herself are absolutely hilarious.
It's no surprise then that she's the author of six New York Times bestsellers.
First came My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands in 2005, and then the
essay collection Are You There, Vodka?
It's Me, Chelsea in 2008.
Those were followed by Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang in 2010, Lies That Chelsea Handler Told
Me in 2011, and Uganda Be Kidding Me in 2014.
But Handler's most revealing, and perhaps most personal book to date is her 2019 release
Life Will Be the Death of Me: ...and you too!
This memoir is a deep dive into her childhood that documents her journey to self-discovery.
As she told USA Today,
"This is the most real that I could get."
And no surprise, this book also topped the Times Best Sellers list.
It's been established that there's pretty much nothing Chelsea Handler can't do, so
it was hardly surprising when she started appearing in movies.
Her most notable big-screen credits include the 2011 Easter-themed family movie Hop and
the 2012 rom-com spy flick This Means War.
The former featured Handler showing off her comedy chops as a character named Mrs. Beck,
and the latter provided her with ample opportunity to deliver inappropriate jokes while sharing
the screen alongside big names like Tom Hardy and Reese Witherspoon.
In This Means War, her character Trish has her hands full giving advice to her friend
Lauren — played by Witherspoon — about how to deal with the affections of two CIA
agents — played by Hardy and Chris Pine.
Some of Handler's jokes had to be cut to ensure a PG-13 rating, though the full unedited version
is available on DVD.
Handler also played a mom in the 2012 teen comedy Fun Size, alongside former Nickelodeon
star Victoria Justice.
The movie tells the story of a teenage girl who loses track of her brother while taking
him trick-or-treating.
"I love you, thank you, you're welcome!"
Before Chelsea Handler wrapped up Chelsea Lately, she'd already figured out what she
was going to do next: a series of programs for Netflix, as she'd previously expressed
her desire to create a show where she does more than just make fun of celebrities.
The deal included a standup special and four docu-comedy specials.
As Handler explained in a statement,
"If I was going to continue working in this industry, I knew I had to do something outside
the box to keep myself interested."
As it turned out, Netflix was interested in more than just a docuseries.
The deal also included a talk show simply called Chelsea, which the streaming platform
described as,
"the first-ever talk show for the global on-demand generation."
Chelsea ultimately ran for two seasons, after which its host shifted her focus once again
to work on another Netflix documentary entitled Hello, Privilege.
It's Me, Chelsea — a film that explores white privilege and how Handler and countless
others have benefited from it.
"Meet me at the courthouse Tuesday at 9:30, everybody!"
Chelsea Handler is passionate about using her platform to help nonprofit organizations.
As she explained to NBC,
"It’s great to help out.
I mean, obviously it's nice to give your time and especially when there is money being raised.
It’s rewarding."
She's not particularly passionate about any one specific charity, though she is very involved
with those that look out for the LGBTQ+ community, such as GLAAD.
As she told NBC in 2011,
"GLAAD I like to get involved with because I think it's important to be involved with
charities that don't necessarily reflect what you're dealing with in your life.
So, for the gay and lesbian community, even though I'm not gay I think it's really important
to speak out for people that aren't necessarily dealing with the same circumstances you're
dealing with and don't have the benefit of the health care system or the government that
you do."
Handler is also involved with the Susan G. Komen foundation, though this one is more
personal, as she lost her mother to breast cancer and knows its effects firsthand.
This is probably one of the reasons she was so outspoken on social media about Planned
Parenthood's potential loss of federal funding in 2017.
She was one of many celebrities who spoke out about the good work the nonprofit does,
including cancer screenings.
It seems the COVID-19 pandemic was good for at least one thing, as it helped Chelsea Handler
find real love.
It's no secret that her past romantic experiences have been rather rocky.
She's even admitted that she found it hard to trust men, so it's no wonder that a genuine
connection seemed to evade her for years.
But in 2021, she finally realized the man of her dreams had been right in front of her
all along.
Handler had been buddies with comedian Jo Koy for years, but she'd always thought of
him as a brother — mostly because he reminded her of her own late brother, Chet.
After reconnecting right before the pandemic, though, their relationship began to shift.
The second they had the opportunity to meet face-to-face, they did.
Shortly thereafter, Handler made her move.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Handler credits the hard work she's done on herself as the reason that she's finally able
to be in a healthy relationship with an amazing guy.
As she told NBC's Today,
"I had to get myself healthy on the inside, and then you attract a healthy [person].
I was attracting 'unhealthies' because I wasn't ready."
"We met through a-a mutual friend, Jon Lovitz.
And Jon Lovitz was doing a show at the Laugh Factory, he was like, 'You have to meet Chelsea"
We're glad to see that Chelsea Handler is happy and healthy these days, and we wish
her the best going forward!
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