It’s another Thursday afternoon in Los Angeles, and Chelsea Handler has just finished recording a new episode of her podcast. Her housekeeper, Mabel, a frequent presence in Handler’s Instagram skits, is packing Handler’s suitcase so that after her Variety photoshoot, she can jet off directly to the airport for a standup performance in Chicago, the latest in her 117-date “Vaccinated and Horny” tour, which launched during the pandemic and comes to a close this month.
Casually hanging with her glam team at home, Handler has ordered a dozen boxes of Domino’s — thin crust cheese — for the crew on-set. “Do you want a piece?” Handler asks, greeting me in her kitchen where she opens the fridge and lifts up a tub of grated parmesan. She also grabs a weed chocolate bar for one of her team members, and then casually asks if anyone wants some Ozempic from her fridge. Is she joking? Not at all. Well, maybe: Handler tells a story about how she recently tried Hollywood’s new weight loss drug — which is really meant for diabetes patients — when a doctor gave her the medication under a different name, she explains, without her realizing it was actually Ozempic. If you haven’t heard of Ozempic, it’s the latest worst-kept secret among the most vain and elite inner circles within showbiz, and Handler is obsessed with talking about it. If she had a talk show, that would definitely be one of her nightly hot topics.
“Apparently, it makes you lose your appetite,” Handler says, devouring her pizza. “But I like having an appetite. It made me nauseous, and I don’t like to be nauseous. Only in this fucking town.”
Not that she’s really a fan. Handler wouldn’t live here if she hadn’t put down roots for her career. She especially can’t stand Beverly Hills, where she’s currently renting a house while she builds a new home for herself. “Every corner you turn, you see the same face, and you don’t know if they’re 40 or 80,” she says. During the pandemic, Handler fled California for her happy place of Whistler, Canada where she day-dreamed about becoming a ski instructor. “I tried to skedaddle and wanted to get the hell out of dodge, just in case Donald Trump got elected again,” she says. It was during this time that Handler became inspired and wrote for her tour — which was filmed for her latest standup special, “Revolution,” coming to Netflix on Dec. 27. Her recent breakup from her ex-boyfriend, comedian Jo Koy, also contributed to her continued revolution of self-reflection.
“What I really discovered about myself during that time was how much I enjoyed the pleasure of my own company,” Handler says. “COVID taught me there is a lot of value in being able to spend time by yourself. “I just allowed myself to be in my house alone and I did whatever the fuck I wanted – and what I like to do is take drugs and read books.”