That night in Cabo, Heather stumbled on to the patio where we were all sitting and was thrilled to share Gina’s fur-coat-limo-sunroof story with us while doing her newfound impression of Gina. Chelsea laughed and then noticed that one of Heather’s eyes was pointing off to the right. Heather is a pretty bad drunk, so Chelsea demanded that she go to bed before she started becoming really annoying. Heather stumbled away on her weird little legs, and the rest of us laughed at her.
“That impression is pretty good,” I said. “She sounded just like Gina.”
“Where is Gina?” Amy asked. “I think I’m sharing a room with her, aren’t I?”
“She’s passed out,” Chelsea said. “You can sleep in my room.”
“Wait, I’m sleeping in your room,” Sarah reminded Chelsea. “Amy can go get in bed with Gina. I doubt she’ll wake up.”
“No, Sarah,” Chelsea said. “Amy can’t share the bed with Gina. Roy has to.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “I’m sharing a room with Michael.”
“Not tonight, you aren’t,” Chelsea informed me. “Tonight you’re sharing a bed with Gina.” She went on to tell me that she thought Gina liked me. “She’s always talking about what a good cook you are.”
“That doesn’t mean she likes me, stupid. And, by the way, it’s called a ‘chef.’ ”
“Sorry, that’s what I meant. I mean, you’re a pretty good chef, but you aren’t worth going on and on about the way Gina does. She likes you. She’s alone in bed, and this is the perfect opportunity for you to go in there and bring your relationship to the next level.”
I don’t have a ton of self-confidence, due to the circumference of my head. When someone tells me that a pretty girl is interested in me, even if it’s Chelsea, I want so badly to believe it that I just do.
Since Chelsea’s friends have all been trained by Chelsea, they joined in with her. Amy started saying that she’d noticed Gina giving me the eye a couple of times while we were lounging at the pool, and Sarah said she thought she’d overheard Gina asking Michael Broussard if I had any interest in a long-term commitment. Pretty soon all three of those assholes had me considering changing my Facebook status to “It’s complicated.”
“Roy, go in there and get in bed with her,” Chelsea demanded. “She’ll like it. Every girl loves to be held, especially after a long day of drinking in the sun.”
I don’t drink as much as my sister or the losers she hangs out with, but I’d had a couple of sips of tequila that day, so I was finding what they were saying very interesting. Plus, I hadn’t been with a makeup artist before. I had heard they’re pretty crazy in the sack.
Even though I had already made up my mind to do so, I let Chelsea tell me a few more times to go crawl in bed with Gina. “I expect a full report,” she yelled as I got up and walked slowly toward my newfound lover’s room.
About two and a half minutes later I walked back to the patio to rejoin Chelsea for a nightcap.
“What happened?” Amy asked.
I went to grab a chair.
“Don’t sit down. You don’t get to sit down until you tell us what happened,” Chelsea warned.
“She didn’t go for it,” I mumbled as I ignored Chelsea’s command and sat down.
“What do you mean she didn’t go for it?” Chelsea asked. “We need details, Roy. Let’s get serious.”
I sighed. I was tired, ashamed, and defeated. “I went into the room, just like you told me. Gina was passed out. I quietly shut the door so that I wouldn’t startle her. Then I took off my T-shirt and my boxers.”
“Wait, what?” Sarah asked as she choked on a lemon. “You took off your boxers?” She, Amy, and Chelsea all started laughing hysterically.
“You told me to get in bed with her!” I semi-yelled. I don’t really like to raise my voice.
“I didn’t tell you to get in bed with her naked,” Chelsea shot back. “What is wrong with you?” She then proceeded to laugh harder than I think I’ve ever seen her laugh. “What did she do?” she said, rolling on the patio.
“Well, she woke up and asked me what the hell I thought I was doing. I quickly realized that she didn’t want me in bed with her—even though you told me that she did—so I panicked. I told her I was just trying to get some shut-eye.”
“Some naked shut-eye,” Amy said with a laugh.
“Shut up, Amy. What do you know about sex. You’re a lesbian,” I fired back.
“Roy, please continue,” Chelsea said.
“Well, she told me that she’d heard my T-shirt and boxers hit the floor, which is ludicrous. Pants maybe, but who hears boxers hit the floor? She said that she knew I was naked. She told me to get the fuck out of the room and to stay away from her for the rest of the trip.”
Chelsea was delighted. In her wildest dreams, she didn’t imagine that I would have removed all of my clothing.
“It’s not funny, Chelsea,” I scolded her. “Now Gina thinks I’m a sex offender. We were kind of friends before, and now she probably hates me. I wonder if she’s going to press charges.”
“Oh, calm down,” Chelsea said with a sigh. “I’ll take care of it.” She assured me that she would tell Gina the next day that she had made me get in bed with her. I don’t know if she planned to tell her that the naked part was my idea, and I didn’t ask.
“Thank you, Roy. That’s the hardest I’ve laughed since I broke up with Ted.”
I looked at my sister, feeling glad that I could give her that gift. So what if Gina started carrying a rape whistle around me? At least my little sister was happy. As Chuy so wisely put it once, “When Chelsea’s happy, everybody’s happy.”
Gina and me on the plane ride home from Cabo that weekend. You can see the distance between us. Chelsea took this photo and laughed the whole way home. Gina and I have recently been able to cook together again. It took some time.
“Just so I’m clear,” I asked Chelsea, “do you still think she likes me?”
For the record: my brother is the horniest person I have ever met, and although I find that disturbing, it is one of my great pleasures in life to be a catalyst in his getting penetration.
—Chelsea
Chapter Five
My Name Is Brad Wollack and I Am Unattractive
BRAD WOLLACK
Me and Chelsea in a rare tender moment when she allowed herself to be vulnerable to my advances.
Chelsea Handler is a hypocrite. The one thing she hates more than anything in life is a liar, and yet Chelsea lies more than anyone else. And not simple lies like “Brad, you were on TMZ last night—oh, wait, it was just a shot of Kathy Griffin’s pubes.” No, we’re talking about emotionally crippling lies.
If she sees your weakness, she pounces. In fact, that’s really the underlying premise of this book. The back cover doesn’t say it, but it should read, “Here’s the deal, Chelsea Handler mercilessly fucks with those around her. They all just have to take it, and here are some of their pathetic stories.”
There are some of us she abuses more than others. Sadly, I’m one of them. It almost feels like I’m a recovering addict. “Hello. I’m Brad Wollack and I’m a constant Chelsea Handler victim.” Chelsea knows all too well that I’m a psychological mess, yet this only fuels her desire to prey on my weaknesses.
Chelsea relishes the emotional strain she places on me when she fucks with me, and, truthfully, she probably doesn’t care. For her, wreaking havoc on my nerves is a good thing. As long as she’s letting off some steam, who cares if I’m contemplating suicide? And if you think suicide is out of the question for me, let me offer you some background…
Shit really started to go downhill for me at around age five. When I wasn’t threatening to kill myself, which was most days, I would throw monumental tantrums for legitimate reasons, such as again being served chicken stroganoff made with low-fat yogurt, or my parents not letting me watch Ponch and Jon exact justice on LA’s worst freeway criminals on my favorite TV show of all time, CHiPs.
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I was sent to a psychiatrist at age six for regular sessions and I never again ate chicken stroganoff made with low-fat yogurt. After a couple years of weekly meetings with Dr. Hansen, most of which were spent with me pretending to be a pizza deliveryman and robbing the doctor, the best analysis the good doctor could come up with was that I was “too rational” for my age. What screams “rational” about a kid consistently wanting to rob innocent people? Even more confounding: Why was I pretending to be a pizza deliveryman when, like most Jews, I preferred Chinese?
That remains a mystery, but I do know that eight-year-old kids don’t rationalize. For example, most of my peers didn’t appreciate the fact that, while playing with model airplanes, I would insist that before flying, the planes taxi to a runway, get clearance from the control tower, and then proceed down a long runway before lifting off, front wheels first. Plus, my friends could never grasp the notion that there were always fog delays due to low-pressure zones at San Francisco International Airport—my hometown airport—and that flights would be delayed or cancelled. They clearly expected more from a playdate than just sitting there waiting for the fog to lift. Needless to say, I should have selected LAX, with its eternally sunny skies. I preferred solo playdates, where I could control the order and outcome, where everything was neat and organized. Plus, for the reasons just given, I wasn’t anyone’s first, second, or even third choice for a playdate.
Come college, it became clear that I had more than just a rationality issue. I was checking door locks religiously. At first it didn’t seem like a problem; my school was in the gang-ridden South Central area of Los Angeles and it appeared as if I were just taking appropriate safety measures against the rampant home invasions in the neighborhood. But slowly, excessive lock-checking was complemented by constant hand-washing. I had become a full-blown obsessive-compulsive with skyrocketing hand soap costs.
One night I got in and out of bed twenty-eight times to make sure the front door was locked. I seriously thought someone was going to come in and violate me. Ironically, my new therapist told me that this was an entirely irrational fear. What the hell had happened to my rationality? I didn’t think it was so irrational—who wouldn’t want to rape me? I was adorable and extremely rape-able. In fact, I was the only guy in my school who carried mace and a rape whistle.
My obsessive nature stems from a family history of absolute anxiety and neurosis. I’m a classic neurotic Jew. In our defense, Jews have been fucked with so many times throughout history that I think it’s okay to be a little on edge. I’m always apprehensive when getting on a train or into a shower. In fact, I am anxious 24/7. As a result, I’m heavily medicated. I have been on a steady dose of antidepressants since I was twenty. In theory, the pills control my anxiety and depression. (Suicide runs in my family, and that just kills me.) Fortunately for me, my anxiety isn’t just manifested by compulsions. I also exhibit a wide range of tics and twitches; so much so that I self-diagnosed myself with Tourette’s because it’s just easier to explain. You should know that it’s not the kind of Tourette’s that makes one swear uncontrollably. I just happen to like profanity and use it often.
My bodily twitches are always morphing. There is the constant teeth grinding and jaw clenching, and, currently, I’m gnawing on the inside of my left cheek, which is causing a widening wound that’s the size of Kate Gosselin’s vagina. I also blink my eyes rapidly, drying them out, and flex the veins in my neck, which makes me look like a Velociraptor. Or at least a Velociraptor that’s had a stroke and whose mouth is pulled back at the side. It’s really unattractive… especially when I’m making love.
In fifth grade I got in trouble once for raising my eyebrows—my twitch of choice at the time—at my teacher. She thought I was flirting with her. How she even thought that, I will never know. I was (and still am) a clean freak, and she was a hippie teacher who worked in the Peace Corps in Nepal and had hairy underarms. Fucking gross… and that’s just concerning the Peace Corps.
My twitches aren’t lost on Chelsea. She thinks they are hilarious and is constantly noting new ones. But rather than being sympathetic, she attempts to mimic the twitch for comedic effect. She’ll usually do this when I come into her office to talk about something personal or request a day off. In the middle of a serious conversation she will start squinting her eyes uncontrollably and exaggeratedly and then start gnawing on her lower lip.
Now that you understand my emotional fragility, you can better assess the psychological toll Chelsea and her lies take on me and my weak mental state. I’m incredibly insecure, and she has no trouble exploiting that.
In truth, her lies start innocently enough, kind of like one of those guys pretending to be a teenage girl in a chat room. At a party once, she said she was going to the bathroom and hadn’t returned after twenty minutes. I thought she was taking a massive dump, but she had slipped out the back door. At another gathering, she insisted on driving me home because I was “too drunk,” but she just wanted to get away from a creepy guy who was trying to aggressively pet her. Turns out, she ended up dating that “creepy guy” for four years.
Don’t get me wrong. Her lies can be hilarious, but not when you’re the poor pawn in her cruel game. Just this past year several of us were on a vacation in Napa Valley. My wife, Shannon, and I were staying with my parents at their home, while Chelsea, Johnny Kansas, and the Texas lesbians were staying at a high-end luxury resort. Their hotel had a strict “no dog” policy, which Chelsea found out when she called to reserve the room and inquired about bringing her dog, Chunk. She felt so bad about leaving Chunk at home most every weekend while on tour, so despite the resort’s policy, she opted to bring him that weekend anyway.
Chunk was sneaked into her room and didn’t cause a problem until the final night. After a debauched evening of drinking and smoking weed provided to us by one of the resort employees, we got hungry at around two in the morning and ordered some room service. Too high to recall the stringent no-pet policy—and too hungry to care—we carelessly opened the door without any concern when room service arrived. No one seemed to remember that a large, dopey German shepherd/chow mutt might alarm hotel staff. Chunk, clearly not aware of the anti-pet policy, trotted into the main room of the suite to greet the server and inquire about his own order.
“Is this your dog?” the hotel employee inquired.
The rest of us were dumbfounded, entirely ill equipped to answer the question. We’d been busted. No way out of this. I picked up my iPhone and started dialing the local cab company, knowing we were about to get kicked to the curb and that none of us would be able to drive back to my parents’ house in our condition. But Chelsea didn’t miss a beat.
“No, not at all,” Chelsea said, sounding concerned. “We just found him wandering the parking lot, lost and scared, and we brought him in, poor thing.” Then she turned toward Chunk, got on one knee, and said, “What’s your name, little puppy? I think he must be lost.” She turned back to the hotel employee and said, with a completely straight face, “I don’t even know if this is a dog. It might be a cat.”
I was stunned, and it took all my might to keep from laughing. There was no way this guy would believe that. First of all, Chunk is clearly a dog. He was also perfectly groomed, had dog tags, and looked totally at home in the room. Plus, how many guests at a five-star resort, upon finding a one-hundred-pound stray dog, instead of calling the front desk, bother to take it in and put it up for the evening?
The man stared at Chelsea. I was sure we were busted. But all he said was, “Oh, okay. That was nice of you. If you need any assistance with the dog… or the cat in the morning, let us know.”
Either he was the biggest idiot ever, or Chelsea Handler is the best liar in the world. As I’ve found out on several occasions, it’s definitely the latter. And the following lies have permanently scarred me.
JOHNNY MOVES IN
Chelsea is one of the most impatient people I know, but when it comes to playing pranks, she has nothing
but time. She’ll let things fester forever. A lot of times she starts a lie and then actually forgets about it, leading someone to believe a falsehood for months or even years. Even if she doesn’t forget it, she rarely, if ever, has an expiration date or an end to a prank. She’ll just let it linger…
If you watch Chelsea Lately regularly or follow Chelsea on Twitter, you are very well aware of Johnny “Kansas” Milord, aka The Bird. Chelsea dubbed him The Bird because of his frail frame and the way he eats: he kind of just pecks at his food. In truth, I’ve never even seen him finish a meal. He looks like a little girl.
Johnny is a lovable little guy, and Chelsea has always had a soft spot for him. Personally, I think they are in love, but Chelsea thinks I’m retarded. She actually thinks I’m retarded for a lot of reasons, not just because I’m convinced she wants to make babies with Johnny.
Johnny eating his lunch at the office. I mean, really.
Regardless, Johnny can be a mess. He always drinks too much and is a nervous wreck, but unlike me, who externalizes all of my thoughts and concerns, Johnny internalizes and frets over everything. That’s why he’s twenty-nine and has already had an ulcer. He can’t make a decision to save his life.
So, a month into the start of Chelsea Lately, after Chelsea told me that Johnny’s apartment had flooded and he was temporarily moving in with her and her boyfriend, Ted—the CEO of our network, E!—I didn’t think twice. Of course Johnny’s apartment had flooded; he lived in some shitbox on the east side of Los Angeles. After the flood, he had no game plan as to where to move to or what to do. He had to let Chelsea dictate all of that for him.