Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me (18 page)

“Sure, why not?” Chelsea said with a smile.

“What are you doing here in Oahu, Pam?” the lady asked.

“Well, actually I am here doing some research for Baywatch. We were thinking about doing a Christmas special in Hawaii on a great beach like this. I am here with my assistant to see if this really will fit with our idea for the show. Unfortunately, we have to get back in a couple of days to finish this season’s finale. No more questions, please, I feel a bit tired. Thank you, thank you.”

“You really are unbelievable, you know that?” I said. “You might get sued for doing what you just did.”

“Oh please, get a grip, Shana!” Chelsea said, laughing. “It was funny, and good practice actually, as I plan to become a great actress one day, so you’d better get used to it.”

The only thing left to make the trip complete was the flight back home, during which I got airsick and unloaded my lunch in my airsickness bag, on my shorts, and on Chelsea’s new skirt.

The bonding vacation didn’t turn out exactly as I had planned, and I was pretty sure Chelsea would not consider traveling with me again anytime soon. I consoled myself with a memory from when I was in the sixth grade and she was in the first. The neighborhood bully decided to target me one day for the factory-reject corduroys my parents had sprung for. Chelsea marched over to this big kid without any hesitation, got right in his face as best she could, being only six and a half years old, and said, “Listen up, fat ass. I have two things to tell you. One, you’d better leave my sister alone or I’m gonna break your dog’s neck, and two, I hope you choke on a Twinkie.”

Whether she felt disdain for me or not, Chelsea always had my back, and a pretty big set of balls—which is true to this day. She still reminds me of what a buzz kill I am, and still has me listed in her phone as “Debbie Downer,” but once Chelsea started making money, she became much easier for me to get along with. After that luau, she has never stopped kissing me hard on the lips, and always in inappropriate situations. The only thing that’s changed is that I’ve stopped fighting it.

My sister Shana still has room for improvement. She is constantly tired and constantly asking extremely annoying questions. I like her more now than I did when we were younger, and I definitely love her more now than I did when I was younger. We talk all the time and vacation together all the time, but I’d be lying if I said we’d be friends if she weren’t my sister. We would not.

—Chelsea

EVA MAGDALENSKI

The first time I met Chelsea I was nineteen. I was working at the Denver Comedy Club and she was there performing for the week. I immediately loved her. I didn’t necessarily think that she was that funny, but she seemed smart and quick. I also really loved the fluorescent scrunchies she wore in her hair. Sometimes a well-dressed ponytail is all it takes to get me going, and don’t even get me started on how I feel about an organized French braid. Since then, Chelsea has ditched the scrunchies, but there are some memories that nobody can take away from me.

While Chelsea was in Denver, she had to go to several radio stations and give on-air interviews to promote her shows. It was my responsibility to make sure she made it to those stations and that she was comfortable.

You know that feeling you get when someone comes up to you and starts massaging your shoulders without asking first? You become very still and uncertain while the unwelcome massage quickly becomes kind of creepy and uncomfortable. All you can think about is how badly you want that person’s hands off you. You can’t really function or make any sudden movements without making things really awkward, so all you say is “Oh, thanks… you don’t have to do that. No, really. That’s okay. Please. Get off me.”

Well, I was giving Chelsea those massages during her radio interviews. My intention was to relax her; it was early in the morning and from what I’d seen with other stand-up comics over the years, there was a good chance she was hungover. Luckily, instead of getting irritated and shouting, “Stranger danger!” the way many had in the past, Chelsea appeared to enjoy my famous touch. She said it was really weird that I had no boundaries when it came to molesting her shoulders, and she appreciated someone who didn’t care if they made other people uncomfortable. After that she lovingly nicknamed me Sloppy Sea Bass. I don’t know what that had to do with the massage, but coming from Chelsea, that nickname was a sign of affection.

Chelsea liked something else about me, but when I recently asked her to tell me what that “something” was, she said she’d have to get back to me. One thing that Chelsea did recognize about me was that I had a passion for comedy. I guess I didn’t hide it all that well, since all I talked about was my passion for comedy. I’ve often been told that I don’t have much of a life, but the joke is on the people who say that to me, because the fact is I don’t. But at least I’m aware of it.

She also enjoyed my sense of humor. One day I went to use the restroom and noticed that Chelsea was in the stall next to mine. When I heard another person enter the bathroom, I started yelling, “What is all of this blood? There’s so much blood!” Chelsea exited her stall and the bathroom, completely ignoring me and leaving the stranger to deal with my pretend situation. Ten minutes later, Chelsea offered me a job as her publicist.

Working at a comedy club in Denver was enjoyable, but there wasn’t a ton of room to move up the ladder. At best I would have become head waitress one day. I was pretty eager to get my career going, so I accepted Chelsea’s offer and quit the club. I began working as her eager—probably overeager—publicist. It was hard work, but it was fun. I was still living in Denver, and she was in Los Angeles, which was fine, since most of the work I needed to do could be done from a phone or computer. We got along really well, which Chelsea says may have had something to do with the long-distance thing. In any case, we developed a pretty close relationship; it was like a sisterhood minus the traveling pants.

Then Chelsea got an offer to host her own show. Since she recognized over the years that I was a hard worker who also happened to have amazing breath, she offered me a full-time job as her assistant. I accepted and moved to Los Angeles. She generously allowed me to move in with her and her boyfriend while I got settled in the city and looked for my own place. She told me to keep an eye out for a place for her as well, because she hated her boyfriend. After a couple of months of living with them, Chelsea told me to get out while I could. She saw no reason that we both needed to suffer through her current living situation.

“I’ll be free soon,” she told me. “See you on the other side.”

I took her advice and settled into my new apartment in a new city and started concentrating on my new job. It was unbelievable: my most likely dead-end job at a comedy club had turned into my dream job with a comedian who was on the verge of huge things. It took only a couple of weeks of working that closely with her for it to become clear to me that Chelsea Handler was, and still is, a huge con artist.

Before I moved to Los Angeles I knew nothing about fashion, television, or celebrity. Now I know a lot about celebrity, but I still wear stretch pants and ill-fitting shirts. However, stand-up comedy was and is still my main area of expertise. That’s where the whole “having no life” thing comes from. When you stay in on weekend nights watching old Steve Martin videos, it’s hard to convince others that you have a ton going on. Any opportunity I had to show off the skills I did have, I took. I was probably a little overzealous with my knowledge. A simple mention of the word comedy by someone, and I would butt in: “Stand-up? What do you want to know about stand-up? I pretty much know everything about every comic ever. Heard of the Denver Comedy Club? I ran it, kind of!”

My reputation as resident comedy expert was really flourishing around the offices of Chelsea Lately. I walked around with my head held high. That was also because Chelsea told me I had horrible posture and had more than once threatened to make me wear a back brace. I felt I had even garnered a lot of respect from the camera crew; from what I could tell, they didn’t respect much, so I felt pretty special—until someone stole the plaque that hung on my office door. I had proudly made it myself, very carefully embossing in gold the words “Eva: Comedy Expert,” and I buffed it daily with a gentle cloth. I was bummed when it was taken, but I refused to make a big deal out of it. Besides, I had a backup over my gas fireplace at home.

There was only one person who didn’t take me seriously. He was Chelsea’s personal appearance agent, and he was never interested in what I had to say. He, whom we shall call Rick because it rhymes with what I used to whisper under my breath every time I saw him, always blatantly disregarded my very valuable insights and understanding of how to market Chelsea’s stand-up career. He never responded to my text messages or e-mails, or confirmed that he had received any of my numerous smoke signals. He never even bothered to call me back to discuss my brilliant idea of selling scratch-’n’-sniff panties with Chelsea’s face on them or life jackets that read “
Chelseahandler.com
” for her summer appearances. I felt the latter was both useful and promotional, not to mention life-saving. It’s also never been done before. In fact, I’m glad I reminded myself about them, because they still need to be made. Eva: 1, Rick: 0.

No matter what people might think about me, and I’ve heard some pretty awful things, when it comes to Chelsea, I know what I’m talking about. I’ve done more than my fair share to keep myself informed on everything about her. I have spent many a night putting articles, photos, and ticket stubs into scrapbooks. I prefer to complete them monthly, so that at the end of the year she will have twelve lovely books of memories to flip through and help her reflect on what she has accomplished over the months. I like to think she sits down with them on New Year’s Day over a bowl of black-eyed peas, perhaps while listening to the Black Eyed Peas, and congratulates herself on a job well done while compiling a list of all the things she would like to accomplish in the coming year. Unfortunately, Chelsea walked into my office one day during an all-out scrapbooking session. Seeing me sitting on the floor and sweating while surrounded by photos of her, with scissors in one hand and glitter in the other, and wearing a
ChelseaHandler.com
life vest must have been too much for her to handle.

She said to me, “Eva, this is where I draw the line. I’ve seen Single White Female, and I’m not interested in you putting a stiletto through one of my lover’s eyes. No more fucking scrapbooks.”

“But, Chelsea, this year has been so—”

“Eva, stop. This is what people do when they are children. I never did it because, for the most part, my childhood is something I’d like to forget. If you put together one more of those things, I’m going to cut your hair off at the ponytail.”

Chelsea knew how much I loved a good ponytail, and the idea of no longer being able to wear a side one sent me into the fetal position. I put away my glue stick and double-sided tape and decided to focus on getting Rick to make a nice new poster for Chelsea’s upcoming shows.

I tried to do everything I could to help Rick help Chelsea succeed, but he ignored me. He consistently sent out old promotional materials for Chelsea’s stand-up performances. You’d think he would use her starring in her own show as a selling point, but instead the posters read: “Chelsea Handler from Girls Behaving Badly Live at Zanies This Weekend!”

I started to wonder if he knew about Chelsea’s show. Maybe he was like that guy from the movie Memento and he forgot new information within seconds of learning it. So I did everything I could to get Rick to update the information he used to promote Chelsea. This included hourly updated data on how her book was selling, organized breakdowns of her show’s ratings, and bullet point lists of her most impressive credits. I even updated her Web site with new headshots and a short bio, so that all he had to do was send a link to club promoters. I FedEx’d over the scrapbooks I’d made, along with a new one I’d put together in private, after hours, when there was no chance Chelsea could walk in on me. I tried everything I could to help him make himself look like he had his shit together. He still never replied to me.

I was preparing myself for an all-out war with Rick when, out of nowhere, he started paying attention to me. Suddenly he was returning my calls, responding to my e-mails, and getting back to me via text message. This is so great, I thought. He’s finally taking me seriously as a businesswoman! He’s recognizing the contributions I bring to the table and is finally coming around to my ideas! Mom was right. Hard work really does pay off!

The sudden turn of events gave me an extra little skip in my step. The scoliosis that Chelsea had diagnosed me with disappeared, and I walked a little taller during this particular period of recognition.

Sadly, my newfound high came crashing down around me when I discovered that Chelsea had sneaked onto my computer and sent the following from my e-mail account.

From: Eva M.

Date: 6/14/2008

To: Rick

Hey Big Guy,

What are you doing for lunch today? I’m super duper horny and I’m just gonna say it: my clit is burning for you. Can we meet?

Ready and waiting,

Eva

You see, Chelsea has tricked the world into believing that she is technologically retarded, but that’s a lie. What I and several other victims have discovered is that she likes to sneak into people’s work spaces, get on their computers without their knowledge, and wreak havoc. I don’t know when she had the time to develop the computer skills she possesses. Maybe she takes night classes or is enrolled in online courses. If she is, I wish she’d tell me, because I’d like to frame her diploma when she graduates. Regardless, she’s pretty shifty. She loves to send out random e-mails in your name. It’s a known fact around the office: If you need to go to the bathroom, grab a bagel, or have a desire for a drink on Margarita Thursdays, you’d better remember to lock your computer before you leave. If you have a laptop it’s better to just bring it with you. If you don’t, Chelsea will humiliate you.