Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me (19 page)

What’s worse than the e-mails she sends to other people is the way you find out what she’s done. Suddenly you start getting concerned voice mail messages from friends or family who are worried about your personal safety or your latest case of shingles.

When I found the e-mail that she’d sent to Rick, I was mortified. For the next six months, he insisted on communicating with me. He was suddenly adamant that we have face-to-face meetings. Although I was able to dodge a one-on-one dinner date, it was impossible not to run into him at Chelsea’s stand-up shows. He’d follow me around all night and compliment my walk, while I smiled and nodded and pretended not to want to strangle him. Part of me was flattered; nobody had ever told me that I had a nice walk before, but once I remembered he wouldn’t have been complimenting me if he didn’t think my underwear was on fire for him, I’d get pissed off again. And yet, no matter how irritated I got, I just didn’t have it in me to tell him that the e-mail had not been from me. I assumed he’d be more embarrassed than I was, especially once he recalled all of the times he had “accidentally” bumped into me with what I’m fairly certain was an erection.

Chelsea did nothing to help the situation. She knew that I was too terrified to confront Rick on his newfound creepiness, so she continued to egg him on. She would say things like “I think Eva has a crush on you…” to keep him interested. At one point Rick decided to tell Chelsea about the e-mail. Instead of coming clean, she played dumb.

“I can’t say I’m surprised that she wrote that,” Chelsea lied. “I think she really has it bad for you. She has some real horniness issues. She needs to unwind, and fucking is the only way she can do it.”

To this day Rick and I have not cleared the air on the issue. I never told him the truth, and he never directly asked me about the e-mail. After a while I felt that too much time had passed and it was best to just let it go. I also figured that once he was no longer handling her personal appearances, I didn’t have to worry about him handling anything personal of mine.

As I’m sure you can imagine, many of Chelsea’s friends and family members are on high alert when they receive any e-mail that contains sensitive-sounding material. She’s still able to fool most of us, but a few of the savvier people in her life have caught on to her. Her sister Simone is one of those people.

One afternoon I was searching through my e-mails for something I had sent to a club about one of Chelsea’s upcoming shows when I noticed an e-mail that had been sent to Simone. Knowing that I hadn’t e-mailed her that day, I felt instant panic. Great! What had “I” done this time? I opened the e-mail and read it.

From: Eva Magazine

To: Simone

Subject: Please Help Me

Hey Simone,

I was just wondering if you could talk to Chelsea for me.

She’s been really moody lately. I think she is stressed out about something. I feel weird telling you this, but she slapped me the other day. I don’t know how to approach her, and I’m worried something worse is going on. I’ve never been hit before. I wouldn’t care if it was just once, but obviously I don’t want it to graduate to a punch.

Please don’t tell her I e-mailed you, I have a wedding coming up and I don’t want a black eye.

Eva

Simone is a little more on top of things than Rick. Later that day, I received this response.

From: Simone

To: Eva Magazine

Subject: RE: Please Help Me

Uh, you had me at hello…“graduate to a punch?” Nice try, Chelsea.

Simone

P.S. Chels, it was a very solid effort (Shana was ready to fly out and save Eva)

Even though Simone has become quick enough to know when she is being Chelsea’d, a few others are still learning.

My adopted sisters (i.e., Chelsea’s sisters Shoshonna and Simone) and me. Whether she likes it or not, Chelsea is a sister to me. We care and worry about each other, we will always be there for each other no matter what, and we know how to make each other nuts. I will be with her until we are old ladies, me and my Chelsea Handler–brand hearing aid.

Chelsea has a close friend and work colleague named Kevin. He and his partner, Brian, are two of Chelsea’s longtime friends and by far some of the nicest people I have ever met. They are gracious, caring, giving, and nurturing. They’ve always been so good to me and I adore them. They are the kind of people who don’t deserve to be fucked with. Unfortunately, Chelsea loves all of the people who are close to her equally. That means nobody gets special treatment… and nobody is safe. One afternoon I received this e-mail.

From: Kevin

To: Eva M.

Hi Eva,

Good to hear from you. We’d love to have dinner this week. Can you come to our house on Tuesday around 7:30 PM? Delicious has offered to cook! Not a common occurrence. Ha ha. If not, we’ll find another night.

And don’t worry; you can count on our complete discretion. We’ve both been there and understand how important your privacy is.

Looking forward to it.

I had no idea what Kevin was talking about. I hadn’t written to either of them in a while, so why would he be saying that it was “good to hear from” me? I know. Sometimes it still takes a few minutes for me to process the obvious. Once reality hit me, I went into my Sent folder to find out what kind of e-mail “I” had sent Kevin. My body went slightly numb when I found this.

From: Eva M.

To: Kevin

How are you? I was wondering if you and Brian were free any nights this week to maybe grab dinner at your place, and we could talk over a couple of things. I’ve always admired a couple that can make a same-sex partnership work and would love to get your thoughts and/or advice on that very topic. For now, I’d prefer to keep this confidential, as I feel it is a sensitive and challenging issue for me. I have not acted on any of my sexual impulses yet, but I am desperately yearning to and could really use the insight that the two of you have. Please let me know. Thanks so much!

I knew that Chelsea would be pretty pleased with herself that Kevin had responded to me the way he had, so I didn’t tell her. I also knew that she would never come to me and ask, so I figured I’d just let her sweat it out. It was like putting a piece of steak outside a lion’s cage and watching the lion desperately try to find a way to get to it. This was the only way I could give her any sort of payback.

As the days passed, she was obviously getting impatient because, as I later found out, she took matters into her own hands and decided to probe Kevin for a little information.

From: CH

To: Kevin

I hear there’s a secret lesbian coming over to the two big bears’ house to confess her love of COSLOPI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am dying to know the details. Can I come over and eavesdrop? I could hide in a closet… just like Eva’s been doing for years!

From: Kevin

To: CH

Hello, Chelsea.

Just as I would never divulge any of your confidences or betray your trust, I would appreciate you respecting the fact that I am also not at liberty to discuss anyone’s personal life. If somebody wants to talk to you about something, then they will. In the meantime if they choose to talk to me, I must keep that in confidence. I hope you can respect that.

Love,

Kevin

Chelsea was dying. She flew into a fit of laughter and peed her pants at her desk. Yes, she does that often and, yes, it’s disgusting. I cross my fingers that one day she’ll have her bladder checked out. When she finally pulled herself together she decided that she should put an end to the joke. Kevin was obviously taking the whole thing very seriously, and she thought it was time to let him know it was all a big lie. At least that’s what she told me; I think she just needed me to work that weekend and didn’t want to lose me to a fake brunch.

From: CH

To: Kevin

Oh, really, dickhead? You want to respect her privacy? First you need to learn to respect my ability to fuck with you. Who do you think sent the e-mail in the first place?

P.S. Your response to her was nice. You’re truly not a shitty person, but you’re still gay and that will never change.

Kevin did not respond to Chelsea for three days. First he e-mailed me to confirm that he had been fucked with. Then he decided to give Chelsea the silent treatment, which he knew she couldn’t stand. Chelsea knew that Kevin was trying to smoke her out, so she just waited idly by until he contacted her. That girl is made of steel.

Kevin finally decided to respond to her, knowing that she’d let this drag out as long as she needed to.

From: Kevin

To: CH

You’re terrible, Muriel, just terrible. I want to know one thing: What did your parents do to you that turned you into such a crazed and conniving lunatic? On top of that, how do you have the time to send e-mails out from other people’s computers? Don’t you have to tape a television show every day? I usually tune in, and while you do come off as unprepared and butcher almost every person’s name, I’d imagine you put in at least a little bit of prep time. Are you a fucking octopus?

From: CH

To: Kevin

I’m not an octopus, but I am an octoPUSSY. An octoPUSSY that poor closeted Eva would really like to get a hold of, but now she has no one to talk to…

One thing Chelsea always is to her friends and her staff is generous. Perhaps it’s her way of apologizing for, say, announcing your pregnancy to your family and throwing in your intention to raise your baby by yourself since the father could be any number of people.

One year Chelsea took her entire staff to Cabo San Lucas for her birthday. She also flew her family down to experience what was later referred to as the “Chelsea Lately Gone Wild” vacation in Mexico. For the record, Chelsea never called it that. In fact, she thinks most of us are stupid. She’s kind of right: most people who work for her should abstain from alcohol.

Chelsea’s family arrived together in Cabo. Leading the pack was her four-year-old niece, Charley. I hadn’t met Charley yet and I was really excited to, because I’d heard so much about her. I bent down to her level, tried to ignore the pain in my lower spine, stuck out my hand, and said, “It’s very nice to meet you, Ms. Charley. I’ve heard so much about you.”

Charley looked at me and replied, “Am I supposed to know who you are?”

It was love at first insult. Any four-year-old who could give me shit was someone I definitely wanted to hang out with. That really goes for Chelsea’s whole family. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that Chelsea has the world’s greatest family. My family thinks that’s rude to say, but most likely they won’t be reading this, since they aren’t super interested in what I do. All of Chelsea’s brothers and sisters are funny and kind, and they’ve always been nothing but wonderful to me. I like to think of myself as their adopted sister, even though when I suggested this, they said that if they had the option to adopt me, they would not. Their family is big; I guess there isn’t much room for one more.

For the rest of the Cabo trip I was attached at the hip to the Handlers. Well… every one of them except Chelsea’s brother Roy. He had a strange way of interacting with me. He was around me a lot, but I felt like he thought he had to be. Don’t get me wrong; he was always nice, but most babysitters are. When he spoke to me, he addressed me as if I were a two-year-old. He would talk very slowly and then ask me if I understood.

“W-e’-r-e g-o-i-n-g t-o t-h-e p-o-o-l n-o-w, E-v-a. Do you want to get your bathing suit and come to the pool with us, Eva? Swimming is fun. Does Eva like swimming, too?”

I couldn’t figure out if he was repeating my name for fear of forgetting it; I heard that some people use that as a memory trick. I also wasn’t sure why he spoke so slowly, especially since I’d seen him interact with everybody else like a normal person. He even spoke to little Charley as if she were a grown woman. I have since recognized that Charley is a lot more mature than I am, but at the time, my feelings were hurt. Roy was always taking my hand and patting me on the back, saying, “G-o-o-d j-o-b,” even if all I did was walk down a couple of steps.

On the last day in Cabo, Roy was nice enough to take me parasailing. He said that he’d heard I wanted to go, which I didn’t, but I felt that it would have been rude to say no to his generous offer. I thought maybe he loved parasailing and was using me as an excuse to go. We headed to the beach. I noticed that Roy was carrying Charley’s arm floaters and wondered if he was afraid of deep water. We got to the boat that was waiting to take us out into the ocean. Just as I started to board, Roy put his hand on my shoulder and stopped me.

“Shouldn’t you take off your legs and leave them at the dock? The water is probably not good for the wood.”

“What?” I asked, confused.

“Don’t be scared. I brought arm floaties for extra safety,” he said to me with a concerned look.

His odd behavior toward me suddenly made sense. Chelsea was busted. I made Roy spill the lie that Chelsea had told him about me. Prior to the Cabo trip, she had informed him that I was mentally disabled. As the story went, I was born in a Polish hospital and when I was delivered my umbilical cord was wrapped around my Polack neck. They were able to save me, but because of the amount of time I spent without air, I couldn’t function at full capacity. The story didn’t quite satisfy her, so she threw in that I had fake legs and loved water sports. Chelsea told Roy that she found out about my fake legs when I was on a trip with her in the Bahamas and wanted to go down a waterslide. According to her, I had to take my fake legs off and send them down the slide first.