I have a girl crush. No, it’s not Katy Perry, Lena Dunham or any one of the Kardashians, although this particular lady is on the same network as them. My girl crush is a bit crass. She doesn’t care what anyone thinks, and she’s not afraid to be promiscuous. My girl crush is Chelsea Handler.
At the age of 15, I can remember getting my hands on my sister’s copy of Handler’s first book, “My Horizontal Life.” Sitting on the old green carpet in my room, I gobbled each page up whenever my sister was downstairs, praying that she wouldn’t come upstairs and catch me reading it. Chelsea’s words were not dirty in a “50 Shades of Grey” kind of way, but dirty in the best way possible: sharp and funny.
Two days of secret reading and I was hooked on Ms. Handler. Since then, I’ve read all of her books, spent hours watching in-depth interviews with her and tuned into her show “Chelsea Lately” every night. Joan Rivers paved the way in 1986 for women in late-night TV but was shut out of the all-boys club in 1987. There has been a hole missing in the late-night lineup. Sure, you’ve got Kimmel, Fallon, Letterman, Ferguson and even Leno for just a little bit longer, but where are all the women?
On July 17, 2007, “Chelsea Lately” aired for the first time on the E! network. If you rewatch it now, she looks different, her jokes are more off the cuff, her guests are as D-list as it gets, and there’s a nervousness that you would never see with Fallon or Letterman. That’s because Handler had something to lose. If she failed, that meant they won, and all those late-night male juggernauts would be right in assuming that women can’t make it in the nighttime lineup.
Almost 1,050 episodes later, she’s still here, with a new multimillion dollar studio, A-list guests and Chuy by her side.
The highest-rated episode came in at 1.8 million viewers, and in comparison to other late-night hosts, that number is far from their standings. Handler differs from them not only because she is a woman, but also because she has created a launch pad for all types of comedians.
Try as she may to convince the audience that she does not care about people, her actions speak louder than words. Donations to charities and countless helping hands to comedians who were on their last dollar until they were featured on her show tell me that, through that thick skin, she really does care. She’s beautiful, smart and cusses like a truck driver, which is my kind of woman. This woman will be my “Woman Crush Wednesday” for years to come, because when it comes to Chelsea Handler, there’s no telling what she might do next.
