Chelsea Handler has been making followers snort for greater than 20 years, changing into a fixture on the American comedy scene. Uncooked, unfiltered, and casually candid, she’s left little to the creativeness when recounting her wild private life, whether or not it is her temporary fling with rapper-turned-mogul 50 Cent, the scandalous particulars behind one among her higher-profile breakups, or her penchant for celebrating her birthdays by snowboarding topless (till acquiescing to her embarrassed nephews’ pleas to knock it off).

In the meantime, she’s reduce a large swath by means of the leisure trade, internet hosting her personal discuss present — twice — together with being a six-time New York Occasions bestselling writer, internet hosting award exhibits (in 2025, she emceed the Critics Selection Awards for the third consecutive time) and starring in her personal comedy specials. Her newest Netflix standup outing is “The Feeling,” through which she riffs on topics starting from a disastrous Thanksgiving with household to her encounter with controversial comic Invoice Cosby. She additionally hosts her personal podcast, “Pricey Chelsea.”

Via all of it, she’s remained unapologetically herself — and her followers simply carry on loving her for it. Learn on for a take a look at Chelsea Handler’s transformation.

It is no stretch to explain Chelsea Handler’s heritage as various. Her mom, Rita, was a Mormon of German descent, whereas her father, Seymour, was an American-born Ashkenazi Jew. Whereas talking on the 2020 MAKERS Convention (as reported by Yahoo! Life), she instructed the viewers, “I grew up as a Jew and a Mormon.” Whereas she skilled each religions whereas rising up, as soon as she was sufficiently old to make her personal willpower, it was her dad’s religion that she finally embraced. “I selected Jewish clearly,” she mentioned, characterizing the rejected faith together with her trademark candor. “Mormonism is so ridiculous,” she added.

Her mom was born in Germany, immigrating to the U.S. at age 19, a indisputable fact that led Handler to find some uncomfortable details about that aspect of her household when she appeared in a 2013 version of a TV collection about superstar ancestry, “Who Do You Assume You Are?” After delving into her mom’s household historical past, Handler came upon her grandfather was a Nazi soldier throughout World Battle II. “My German grandma positively spoke about her life throughout the battle far more than my grandfather did,” she recalled within the episode, by way of E! Information. “He by no means spoke about it.”

Born in 1975, Chelsea Handler was the youngest of six kids. She was simply 9 years outdated when, in 1984, her oldest sibling, Chet, died by chance whereas climbing. “Chet, who was 21, fell off a cliff. His loss of life was devastating,” Handler instructed the Wall Avenue Journal.

As Handler revealed in an interview with USA Right this moment in 2019, her nine-year-old self perceived her large brother as “sort of my protector, sort of a father determine, a giant brother, a crush, your first boyfriend,” she instructed the outlet. In the meantime, she additionally recalled that her father had been left desolate by dropping his son, which in flip saddened her even additional. “I did not like seeing my father weak. I would already misplaced my brother; I could not lose my dad too, and I did,” she mentioned. “My dad by no means recovered.”

It wasn’t till years later, when she started present process remedy that Handler got here to know that she’d by no means totally coped together with her brother’s loss of life, as a substitute pushing all ideas of him out of her thoughts to keep away from the ache of her actuality. This, she now realized, had left her with a lifelong aversion to vulnerability. “I handled it by simply, if anyone talked about Chet or talked about him, I would just depart the room,” she defined. “I would get on my bike, and I would journey my bike for hours across the neighborhood. I might cry on my bike, however I would not let anybody see me cry in individual.”

As a young person, Chelsea Handler skilled some success competing in magnificence pageants in New Jersey, and at age 19, left residence for Los Angeles to pursue a profession in showbiz. Initially, she stayed together with her aunt and uncle, who lived in Bel Air. “They’d two, tiny two-bedroom homes for 9 children, 4 canines and, at one level, a bat,” she recalled for the Wall Avenue Journal. “It was pandemonium. After three months, I left and located a waitressing job.”

After being in LA for 2 years, 21-year-old Handler was arrested for driving beneath the affect. After spending 24 hours in jail, she was ordered by a decide to attend alcohol schooling courses. At one level, she was required to debate the circumstances of her arrest with the remainder of the category. As she recounted what had taken place, she could not assist however make it humorous. “The man working the category was like, ‘Okay, this isn’t a standup routine,'” Handler mentioned throughout an interview with Vulture. 

Interviewed for HLN, she was surprised by the constructive response she obtained from the opposite “college students” within the class. “Individuals got here as much as me and like, ‘You are actually humorous,’ and I am like, ‘Yeah, I feel I’m, too,'” she recalled. On condition that her makes an attempt at changing into an actor had borne little fruit, she abruptly noticed one other path to success within the leisure trade: standup comedy.

Slowly and steadily, Chelsea Handler started creating a following in LA comedy golf equipment. This opened the door to tv, and he or she appeared in just a few TV exhibits, together with visitor spots in “The Observe,” “The Bernie Mac Present,” and, paradoxically, taking part in a drunk driver in “Cops” spoof “Reno 911!”

Nonetheless, it was standup, not tv, that paid the payments. As she instructed the Wall Avenue Journal, “I labored my ass off for 5 years. After I was round 26, I made it to Montreal’s Only for Laughs comedy pageant, an enormous deal.” Her set, nonetheless, didn’t go over properly. “I bombed,” she admitted. Again in LA, although, her agent arrange a showcase gig upon her return, with an NBC government within the viewers. “The following day, NBC gave me a improvement deal and handed me a examine for $100,000,” she mentioned. “All of this occurred in 72 hours.”

She landed her highest-profile gig so far shortly after when she was tapped to host “On the Lot,” a TV competitors collection for aspiring filmmakers from “Survivor” producer Mark Burnett and director Steven Spielberg. Rankings had been dismal, rising smaller every week till the present was ultimately axed. Handler, nonetheless, left after the debut episode and was changed by Adrianna Costa. “I give up that present as a result of I smelled the catastrophe taking place earlier than it did,” she mentioned, as reported by TV Collection Finale, sustaining that quitting ranks amongst her wisest selections. “Someone mentioned, ‘You’ll be able to’t give up a Steven Spielberg present, you may’t give up a Mark Burnett manufacturing.’ Watch me, watch me give up.”

Instantly after quitting “On the Lot,” Chelsea Handler’s NBC deal led to “The Chelsea Handler Present,” a sketch comedy collection for the NBCUniversal-owned E! community. Following a format much like the wildly fashionable “Chappelle’s Present,” Handler mixed her standup comedy with sketches. Whereas that present was not successful, E! president Ted Harbert — whom Handler had begun courting — determined sketches weren’t her forte and determined she ought to lean into her personal persona. Consequently, “Chelsea These days” was born.

After all, a late-night cable present could not compete with community TV’s late-night large boys resembling “SNL” star-turned-“Tonight Present” host Jimmy Fallon and “Late Night time” legend David Letterman, and Handler wasn’t touchdown the A-list visitors these exhibits might command — a minimum of at first. Nevertheless, she took that in stride whereas carving out her personal house. “The more severe the visitors are, the extra pathetic they’re, the funnier the present is,” she defined throughout an interview with W Journal. Night time after evening, although, the recognition of “Chelsea These days” soared. Comic Heather McDonald, an everyday on the present, supplied her concept on why viewers linked with Handler. “She’s the king of drunk, scorching blondes,” McDonald instructed Leisure Weekly. “They have been wandering the earth, they’ve by no means had a pacesetter, till Chelsea arrived together with her large boobs and lengthy hair and sassy perspective, they usually’re like, ‘She’s me!'”

The present ran for seven seasons till its cancellation in 2014. “I actually am extra stunned than anybody that I used to be capable of maintain down a job for seven years, and it was a incredible seven years,” mentioned Handler in a press release to Selection. “I’ll all the time look again at my time on E! as most individuals look again at their time in faculty. I am glad I went.”

Whereas Chelsea Handler made a reputation for herself on the phases of comedy golf equipment, she additionally launched into a sideline as an writer. In 2005, her first guide was revealed, “My Horizontal Life: A Assortment of One Night time Stands,” through which she shared raucous anecdotes about courting. She adopted that up with “Are You There, Vodka? It is Me, Chelsea,” which arrived in 2008. She adopted that up with a number of extra: “Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang” (revealed in 2011); “Lies That Chelsea Handler Informed Me” (2012); “Life Will Be the Demise of Me: … And You Too!” (2020); and “I am going to Have What She’s Having,” launched in early 2025.

Interviewed for PureWow, Handler defined that her strategy of writing a guide could be very totally different from the opposite writing she does and tends to be much more sporadic. “I’ve no artistic construction,” she mentioned. “It is very free. And once I’m within the temper to put in writing, I write.”

In response to Handler, every of her books has been a type of snapshot in time, reflecting a selected level in her life’s journey. “I feel all of my books are consultant of the place I’m in my life at the moment,” she instructed Newsweek.

Whereas Chelsea Handler’s relationship with E! head honcho Ted Harbert coincided together with her arrival on the community, finally, “Chelsea These days” outlasted their romance. Handler was the one who pulled the plug in 2010, and Harbert reportedly took the breakup onerous. In a 2012 interview with Marie Claire, Handler conceded that it was their lack of ability to separate their skilled and private lives that led to their cut up. “I’d come residence from work, and Ted can be like, ‘Do you wish to watch your present?’ and I would be like, ‘No, I simply got here from my present. That is the very last thing I would wish to do,'” she mentioned. “That was the rationale it did not work out, finally. I feel.”

Greater than a decade later, although, Handler supplied another excuse for the breakup. Showing on Andy Cohen’s SiriusXM discuss present, she defined that she and a boyfriend had a threesome with one other lady. “I used to be very turned on by this lady … I ended up hooking up together with her a number of occasions with out the man that I used to be courting. That is once I knew it was time to interrupt up with the man.” She went additional by figuring out that boyfriend. “His identify is Ted Harbert,” she added.

Handler backtracked throughout a subsequent look on “The Tonight Present Starring Jimmy Fallon,” revealing Harbert had despatched her a textual content telling her to cease doling out intimate particulars of his private life. “So I actually wish to make clear, I wish to go on the document that’s not why our relationship ended,” she mentioned.

In 2007, Chelsea Handler launched her personal manufacturing firm, Borderline Superb Productions, which produced “Chelsea These days” and in addition grew to become the identify for her personal publishing imprint. In 2010, Borderline Superb produced “Fairly Wild,” an E! actuality present following a trio of teenage LA socialites. In 2011, she renewed her cope with E! by means of to 2014, which additionally gave E! and NBCUniversal a first-look deal at tasks produced by her firm. The primary mission to emerge from that deal arrived in 2012 when she produced a brand new discuss present hosted by fellow feminine standup Whitney Cummings (which was sadly canceled after a short four-month run). 

The next yr, she produced one other discuss present for E!, “Whats up Ross,” hosted by erstwhile “Tonight Present” persona Ross Matthews, aka Ross the Intern. That present fared higher, working for 2 seasons earlier than its cancellation, which reportedly needed to do with Handler’s 2014 exit from E! One other present to bear Handler’s imprint as producer was “The Josh Wolf Present” for CMT.

In the meantime, Handler additionally produced some exhibits that by no means made it off the bottom. After signing a brand new first-look improvement cope with NBCUniversal in 2018, a potential Marvel animated superhero collection, “Tigra & Dazzler,” wound up being scrapped. In 2020, she bought the half-hour comedy “Blair” to HBO Max and one other comedy, “Wiped Out,” to Peacock; 5 years later, each are nonetheless in improvement, and should or might not see the sunshine of day.

Whereas nonetheless internet hosting “Chelsea These days,” Chelsea Handler produced a sitcom for NBC, loosely based mostly on her guide, “Are You There, Vodka, It is Me, Chelsea.” The sitcom — “Are You There, Chelsea?” — targeted on Handler’s hard-drinking, promiscuous persona. Due to her different commitments, Handler didn’t play the titular Chelsea, who as a substitute was portrayed by “That ’70s Present” alum Laura Prepon. Handler did have a job on the present, nonetheless, taking part in in opposition to sort as Chelsea’s judgmental and really pregnant older sister. “We wish folks to know that I am a part of the present however that that is the star of the present,” Handler defined throughout an look on the Tv Critics Affiliation winter press tour in early 2012, by way of Deadline. “But it surely’s Laura’s present finally … I would like to be in it as typically as potential, however I significantly do not have the time.”

As for why the present’s title dropped “Vodka,” Handler broke down the community’s rationale. “Not everyone seems to be into alcohol as a lot as I’m,” she remarked. “So I feel the community needed folks to [embrace] the present whether or not or not that they had as large a consuming downside as I do.”

Opinions had been lukewarm, with some critics noting that Handler’s presence on the present solely served to undercut Prepon. Whereas scores had been strong at first, viewership shortly plummeted. The present was canceled after simply 12 episodes. 

In 2014, the identical yr that “Chelsea These days” ended, Chelsea Handler signed a cope with Netflix to launch the streamer’s first-ever discuss present. Earlier than that present arrived, she appeared in “Chelsea Does,” a collection of 4 Netflix documentaries, with every tackling a distinct matter — marriage, racism, Silicon Valley, and medicines. In a 2015 interview, she envisioned her present as taking up a newsier strategy than its predecessor. “I would really like a wholesome mixture of every thing that goes on world wide,” she mentioned on the Code Media convention, as reported by Selection. Singling out ISIS and Syria as potential dialogue subjects, she shared her imaginative and prescient. “The well-roundedness of ’60 Minutes’ however quicker, faster, cooler,” she mentioned, expressing her aid that she would not be hemmed in by the tabloid-level subjects she was pressured to cowl on E! — significantly something to do with the Kardashians. “I simply do not wish to ever need to see that once more,” she mentioned. “I do not care about that.”

Extra particulars in regards to the present emerged in 2016 when Handler revealed the present would air thrice per week, on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. She subsequently revealed the present’s title, “Chelsea.” Interviewed by Coveteur, Handler confessed that she did not see herself ever returning to conventional tv; she’d gone all in with Netflix. “My future is with Netflix and Netflix is the longer term — streaming is the place it is at,” she mentioned. “Hopefully, community tv won’t ever go away, however I really feel like I am sitting on the cool children’ desk; lastly on the age of 41, that is the place to be.”

“Chelsea” debuted in Might 2016 and ran for 2 seasons. Nevertheless, “Chelsea” didn’t have the longevity of her earlier discuss present and, resulted in 2017.

In 2021, Chelsea Handler started courting fellow comic Jo Koy, with the 2 taking their relationship Instagram official in late September. They’d recognized one another for a while however reconnected as buddies earlier than the friendship grew to become extra intimate that summer season. When the 2 had been interviewed collectively for The Hollywood Reporter, Koy mentioned it was Handler who’d made the primary transfer. “She principally requested me to kiss her,” Koy mentioned, with Handler including, “I mentioned, ‘I feel you may have a crush on me, and if you happen to do, you need to do one thing about it and see what occurs.'”

Sadly, the romance flamed out shortly. In July 2022, Handler took to Instagram to disclose that they’d damaged up. “It’s with a heavy coronary heart to announce that we’ve got determined collectively that it’s best for us to take a break from our relationship proper now,” she wrote within the caption. A supply instructed People who buddies of the 2 had been hopeful that they’d be capable of work issues out and reconcile. “But when something, it is clear their relationship has modified them each for the higher,” the supply acknowledged.

The ultimate remnants of their relationship had been on show in her 2022 standup comedy particular, “Revolution.” Taped nearly three weeks earlier than their cut up, Koy had served because the particular’s director.