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CNN Larry King Live
Interview With Chelsea Handler
Aired April 01, 2010 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LARRY KING, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, Chelsea Handler rips on Hollywood's cheaters.
CHELSEA HANDLER, TALK SHOW HOST: You think that's funny?
KING: Tears into their mistresses.
HANDLER: First of all, look at my forehead you dumb [ bleep ], OK?
KING: Reveals her own sexcapades.
HANDLER: Somebody didn't just wake up looking this magical.
KING: Gets on her knees when she has to. What kind of woman sleeps with her boss, then breaks up with him and keeps her job? Yes, it's Chelsea.
HANDLER: He called you a slut.
KING: The bawdy booze-loving broad has no shame.
HANDLER: I want to know what you drink to keep your body like that because what I'm drinking is not working.
KING: Is there anything she won't talk about? I hope not.
HANDLER: Oh, really?
KING: That's next on LARRY KING LIVE.
Chelsea Handler is here. She's the star of "Chelsea Lately" on E! and is a "New York Times" best-selling author. Her new book "Chelsea, Chelsea, Bang Bang." We have the book right here in our hands. It is a runaway best-seller. And she has just come down. Thank you for coming. Good to have you here.
HANDLER: Thank you for having me. That was quite an introduction.
KING: You were with us once, but not here, you were at the Spelling mansion?
HANDLER: Yeah, we interviewed -- you had me go and do a tour of Candy Spelling's mansion. KING: Is that one of the highlights of your career?
HANDLER: It was one of the ridiculous highlights of my career. I mean, you've been there, I assume?
KING: Never been in.
HANDLER: Oh yeah, she -- it was pretty amazing. I didn't get to see all of it.
KING: Would you live there?
HANDLER: Would I love there? With her in the house or not? I don't think so. I don't think I need a house that big.
KING: The 500th episode of "Chelsea Lately" is this month. Do you have a special program planned for April 13th.
HANDLER: We don't plan that far in advance. We don't take our show seriously enough to plan that far in advance.
KING: Are you thinking about number 500?
HANDLER: We are. We are pretty excited. It goes by rather quickly, as you probably know. If we could get somebody amazing like David Hasselhoff or Paula Abdul, maybe.
KING: Those would be your top two?
HANDLER: Those would be my top two.
KING: You told "Entertainment Weekly" a talk show host shouldn't humiliate their guest, they should let the guest humiliate themselves. Is that your method? Do you just figure you give enough rope?
HANDLER: I like to -- yes. I don't think it's fair to invite someone into your living room and then to skewer them or make fun of them. I mean, they're coming into your house, so to speak, and I think it's nice to be as, um, as pleasant as possible, and if you can help them -- or if they're -- if they're on their way to making a fool out of themselves, not to get in their way.
KING: Do you have an agenda?
HANDLER: Not really. I don't have an agenda.
KING: You're in a war of words, I understand, with one of Jesse James' mistresses, Michelle "The Bombshell" McGee. Last night on your show, you fired back for some comments she had made about your looks. Check this out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HANDLER: One of the writers said that she wrote on her Facebook page and said "Chelsea Lately" made a comment about me. What I said is I guess she doesn't read magazines, which makes sense, since she basically has one on her face. And she goes, it's funny Chelsea. And then she went on to write "Chelsea, here's some free advice. Use some of that Botox from your forehead and put it in your flabby underarm skin. I've seen better wings in a bucket of KFC Chicken. Until you've dipped my wings in 11 herbs and spices or bleu cheese dressing and taken that needle that you used -- first of all, look at my forehead you dumb [ bleep ], OK?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: This is relevant to the growth of our society.
HANDLER: This is important, Larry.
KING: Why?
HANDLER: I'm a number one "New York Times" best-selling author.
KING: But why is this feud important?
HANDLER: The feud is not important. The show is very, very silly, and we like to -- I like to poke fun at myself and I like to poke fun at others. So when somebody like that makes a comment about me, I like to stand up for myself.
KING: You should.
HANDLER: I'm outspoken and I'm a comedian. So you shouldn't say anything unless you're ready to hear it back.
KING: Would you have her on the show?
HANDLER: No, I wouldn't.
KING: Because? She's become a personality.
HANDLER: No, because there's just a level that I don't want to go to. I think we probably experimented that with a bit when the show started, but we've been around now for a couple years and we're starting to get our feet underneath us, or our feet wet, and she's just not the type of person -- it's like Heidi and Spencer Montag are proud or whatever their names are, who I call Herpes 1 and Herpes 2, I wouldn't really want them on the show, either. I just don't think it speaks volumes about the kind of person I am. It's a silly show, but it's not a gross show.
KING: Were you a funny kid? Did you make people laugh in class?
HANDLER: I don't know that a lot of people found me amusing. I mean thought I was pretty hilarious, but a lot of people thought I was probably really just super annoying.
KING: We don't associate pretty women with funny.
HANDLER: Are you hitting on me right now?
KING: No, I'm not hitting on you. HANDLER: I'm just checking, Larry.
KING: Usually we expect pretty women not to be funny.
HANDLER: There's a lot of pretty funny women out there.
KING: That's different. That's pretty funny women, not funny pretty women.
HANDLER: Oh, got it.
KING: What do you make of this whole Jesse James/Sandra Bullock thing?
HANDLER: Oh, I think that's pretty bad. With Tiger Woods that happened, and you were kind of stunned by the amount of women that came out and forward, and it just kept coming. And it was just a snowball effect, and then you start to look at him with such -- I myself lost a ton of respect for him, just the laziness with which it was conducted. And the -- you know, not thinking about your children and your family.
And then when another person that's in the spotlight this happens to, you know, it's just kind of like something is going around, you know, like people are just hornier than ever or something. I don't really know what to make of it. I love Sandra Bullock. I think everybody loves her. She's had such an amazing year, so you just hope that she's going to figure this out and be OK. I have a lot of sympathy for her, more than I have for the Swedish one married to Tiger Woods.
KING: Why not for her?
HANDLER: Because I feel like the way she's -- I don't know why. Maybe because I've seen Sandra Bullock in more movies. I'm not sure. But for some reason I just like Sandra Bullock. I think everybody kind of likes Sandra Bullock.
KING: Did anyone ever cheat on you?
HANDLER: Probably.
KING: Do you know?
HANDLER: Um, yeah, yes, in high school. I don't think people come forward with that information -- oh, no. Yeah, I wrote about it in my first book, my English boyfriend. I walked in on him with two girls, actually.
KING: He was British?
HANDLER: Yes.
KING: How did you react seeing him with two girls?
HANDLER: Well, I called the police, first of all. KING: That's a crime?
HANDLER: In my book it was. I mean, they didn't show up. But I called them anyway. I think I keyed a car. I was 21, so I was pretty angry. I mean, if you're 41, you're going to behave that way, somebody, you know, that you trust and love cheats on you. I try not to cheat on my boyfriends when I have them.
KING: So you're a monogamous person?
HANDLER: I try to be, yes. I think it's a nice way to be. It's a good kind of --
KING: Do you believe in sexual addiction? We did a whole show on it last night.
HANDLER: Did you?
KING: Do you think there is such a thing?
HANDLER: I don't know. I think maybe there must be. It's a form -- I don't know what it's a form of. I think it's probably more common for a man than a woman to be addicted to having sex. I mean, we're just so over it by a certain time. You know, when it's new and exciting, fun and it's great. Men constantly have to search for that. I think -- not that women don't, but more so I think men need really that rush of feeling like --
KING: Conquest.
HANDLER: Like what I did to you, boom boom.
KING: As in the title of your book.
HANDLER: That's bang bang, "Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang."
KING: Why isn't Chelsea on "Dancing with the Stars" and who is going to the White House Correspondents Dinner with the scoop straight from Chelsea after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Kate Gosselin is competing on this season's "Dancing with The Stars." The judges don't think she can dance and she's being branded an offstage drama queen diva. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TONY DOVOLANI, DANCER: -- my teaching ever before.
KATE GOSSELIN, CELEBRITY: All it was was the fact that I just wanted to see the steps.
DOVOLANI: So it was my fault, this whole thing?
GOSSELIN: You're not hearing what I'm saying. DOVOLANI: I've heard you all day.
GOSSELIN: I'm done. I'm done today.
DOVOLANI: I'm a nice guy, but I'm done. I quit.
GOSSELIN: I don't get it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: The star?
HANDLER: She is a star, Larry.
KING: What's your reaction to her?
HANDLER: I think it's a statement of where we kind of are in this world, along with the part I play in it, which I take full responsibility for.
KING: You put yourself in the same kind of class?
HANDLER: No, I don't put myself -- no absolutely not. I would never marry an Asian man, but I -- I don't -- I don't really like the people that are famous because of something like that.
KING: Because of being famous.
HANDLER: I guess she had a lot of children. She doesn't seem like the nicest person in the world. I don't know what kind of mother has that many children. I don't know how many children she's up to right now, would have time to be on "Dancing with the Stars." Because from what I hear, the rehearsals are pretty laborious, it's four to six hours a day. I mean, you have eight children, that's pretty important to focus on.
KING: Why are we as a society fascinated by her?
HANDLER: I'm not really sure. You know, I wondered that all the time when you see somebody like her on the cover of magazines every week, it's kind of really scary because there's so many people out there doing valuable work. You look at like a "People" magazine which used to be a really good, you know, nice magazine you could go to for real stories, it wasn't like a "Star" or an "US Weekly" and they have somebody with plastic surgery on the cover, Heidi Montag. And it's obviously what consumers want, because why else would they be doing it? But I think it's important that people have their 15 minutes and then we let them go.
KING: She's gotten more than 15.
HANDLER: She's gotten a lot of minutes, so hopefully they'll be up with the "Dancing with the Stars" tour.
KING: You turned down "Dancing with the Stars", correct?
HANDLER: Yeah, I have a job so I didn't really need to do that.
KING: Did you have any inclination to see what it would be like? A lot of people watch it.
HANDLER: I don't really have any desire to dance in public, whether I'm dressed in a sequined gown or not. I don't think that's really my forte. And I also don't really love reality television.
I mean, I have to talk about it on my show a lot, so I've absorbed so much of it that I'm very familiar with it, but there comes a point where your I.Q. starts to really come into question. You feel like your brain is melting, and so, you know, like you, we were just talking in the break about how you get to interview different people every day, you get to interview athletes or politicians or actors or whatever, philanthropists, it is why you probably are able to do it every day, because you get to diversify and take about so many different aspects.
KING: Every day is different.
HANDLER: Right, hopefully you will retire soon, so I can take over a job like this. Because if I talk about Kate Gosselin for one more year, I'm probably going to shoot myself in the head.
KING: Let's say it's seven or eight years from now and I retire and they probably tell you your first guest is Kate Gosselin.
HANDLER: Wow, but you know what? In a format like this, it's like you can have a real conversation, it's not so presentational. Like when you go on the late-night shows, or you -- if you're looking at me, I can, if we're communicating. If you're on my show you're kind of presenting something, you're being funny, our if you're watching the late-night shows, it's kind of like there needs to be a joke.
KING: It's show business.
HANDLER: So if I could sit down with Kate Gosselin and actually have a heart to heart with her, that would be kind of interesting, if I had nothing better going on that day.
KING: Chelsea has something to say about entourages. In fact her posse is in the green room watching at this very minute. How many people does it take to get Chelsea on TV? We will find out after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: In addition to everything else Chelsea is doing, she's touring with her stand-up comedy. This Saturday she has two shows at the Northrop Auditorium in Minneapolis, she'll be at the Gibson Amphitheater in Los Angeles April 30th. She lives in Los Angeles, and is that entourage still in that room there?
HANDLER: That's my brother and Jenny, my friend Jenny, and her sister Jo Jo. KING: Jenny McCarthy?
HANDLER: Yes, Jenny McCarthy, she's here, because it's autism month. You know April is Autism Month.
KING: Do you feel that you need people behind you? Do these people have to be here to support you with this?
HANDLER: No, my brother is visiting from out of town. He's my CPA also so he's just coming here to slap me on the wrists.
KING: Well, it's April 15th soon, I get it.
HANDLER: So he's there for that.
KING: You play a handler for a bratty teen in a photo shoot in "Harper's Bazaar." You talk about Hollywood entourages in that -- in that article, you dish about publicists. You say some are delusional, your publicist, Stephen Huvane, how did you decide that he's your publicist?
HANDLER: Well, I decided, first of all, he has an amazing reputation and he handles himself very well.
KING: And there he is.
HANDLER: And there he's on camera, he's going to love this.
KING: Wait a minute, we're going to make a star here tonight. You are now looking, ladies and gentlemen, across the world looking at a publicist.
HANDLER: He's a great guy. And his brother is a great guy who's my agent, Kevin Huvane. And they're a good family, and they have a nice big family like I do. They come from a good family, and he's very evenhanded. And by doing my show, as you well know from doing your show, you deal with a lot of A-holes that are publicists.
KING: Really?
HANDLER: That are worse than the actors. They think that they're the celebrities.
KING: Correct.
HANDLER: And I won't mention any names, although I would love to.
KING: Go ahead.
HANDLER: No, I won't. But, you know, it's nice to have somebody --
KING: Have you had other publicists?
HANDLER: I have. Yes, I've always had good publicists. I just -- he's just a great guy, and I just really wanted to take it to the next level.
KING: In the movie "Days of Wine and Roses," you're too young to even remember it, with Jack Lemmon, his future father-in-law asks him what he does for a living. He says public relations. And he asks him to explain it. And there begins a 10-minute scene that is impossible to explain. How do you explain a publicist?
HANDLER: You know, it's hard because when you come into this business, you think of people who have publicists, it's like oh, that's so ridiculous, why would you need it? And then as you gain more and more momentum, you kind of need somebody to act as a conduit to kind of help you make the right decisions and help you kind of manage your time and what will help. You know, when you write a book, you want the book to do well, you want the right publicity, you want to do the right thing. So when you have a TV show, you want to come on shows like this or you want to reach audiences that you're not normally reaching. So it's going to have somebody with that kind of experience.
KING: Why are you so open with things like masturbation?
HANDLER: Who said anything about masturbation? That's you projecting.
KING: You write about it your book, don't you?
HANDLER: I do.
KING: So what do you mean? I ask you because you wrote about it.
HANDLER: Well, I didn't expect you to read my book, Larry, I have to be honest with you. I just thought you were going to ask me questions about it.
KING: Well, I was told.
HANDLER: I am open about things like masturbating, because I think that it's refreshing to be able to talk about things that people tell you that you're not able to talk about. Whenever I talk to my girlfriends or my sisters or my family about, I want to be able to talk to everyone about. And there are certain ways people think that they need to behave, and I feel like, why? We're all just here to have a good time.
KING: So there's no taboo.
HANDLER: I don't feel that way. I mean there's base and then there's having a sense of humor. I don't like to be disgusting. I mean, I do kind of, but I just like to have a really good time. I like to laugh a lot. And that kind of stuff makes me laugh. It might be considered potty humor, it is considered potty humor, but I don't really think that I'm a potty person.
KING: Are you first and foremost a stand-up? HANDLER: I'm a comedian. Stand-up isn't my one true love. I love my TV show more than I love stand-up, just because it reaches so many more people and you're able to go and do something in a half hour and see it that night, is really great instant gratification.
KING: But isn't there nothing like standing on a stage by yourself making them laugh?
HANDLER: To be quite honest, I love to have people around me.
KING: Obviously. Look at the green room.
HANDLER: Being on the stage as much as a lot of people love that alone feeling, it's great to walk out to a crowd. I'm going to Minneapolis this weekend to the Northrop Auditorium to do two shows and it's like 4,000 or 5,000 people and to walk out and have those people screaming for you is probably the most amazing feeling. Next to being a football player or something where you had a stadium, or Dane Cook, it's a pretty great feeling. But the TV show, it's me, I've got my friends around me, and we all get to talk and that's just my favorite thing.
KING: If you're a man and have red hair, Chelsea has a special message for you, and remember there's always dye. More after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Welcome back. Chelsea Handler is our special guest. Her new book is "Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang" and of course she hosts "Chelsea Lately" on E! Jay Leno is weighing on the recent upheaval in late night TV. He thinks he and Conan O'Brien got a raw deal. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAY LENO, COMEDIAN: Conan got screwed. I got screwed. I mean this is TV. The reason show business pays a lot of money is when you get screwed, you have something left over. If you're a nurse or a cop, you get screwed out of your pension, you're screwed out of your pension. In TV, they give you at least you walk away with some money. Conan was treated terribly and I was treated terribly, and guys make a decision. I think Conan will come back and he'll be strong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: You're a late night -- you're the only female late-night host.
HANDLER: Um-hmm.
KING: What do you make of this whole Leno/Conan?
HANDLER: It's unfortunate. Conan is a great guy, he's hilarious, really good guy. And Jay Leno is a great guy, too. You know, Jay gave me my start, and he was the first show I ever did a stand up on. And I've been on the show so many times, and he's been so great and I always have -- I will always have a loyalty to him. It's really unfortunate situation to be in, and I don't envy either one of them.
KING: Do you blame the network?
HANDLER: Yes, I blame NBC. It was a disaster. Why would you do that? Why would you move someone around? It's like missing the forest for the trees or whatever that saying is.
KING: Can't see the forest through the trees.
HANDLER: You can't see the forest. I mix things up. I tend to.
KING: It's cute.
HANDLER: You know, it's not great to get a job like "The Tonight Show" and then have to walk away from that. That can't feel great to anybody, but especially to somebody like that but you know what, he's a great guy and he will succeed. And whatever show he does is going to be a huge success. And, you know, that's all I can say. I wasn't involved in it.
KING: You like them both.
HANDLER: Of course.
KING: Do you ever go do you have a goal beyond "Chelsea Lately"?
HANDLER: I think so. I'm starting to feel like I can see a way out.
KING: You want out already?
HANDLER: No, I don't want out. I'm very fortunate and I have a great life, but after talking about celebrity, it goes back to what we were discussing earlier, talking about it so much. It's a half hour, a very fast-paced show, and I kind of feel like it's more like junior high compared to, you know, what Jay and Conan do, which is more of high school. It's more -- I would love to be able to go on and do other things when my contract is up, and kind of branch out and be able to talk about politics and sports. I don't really know much about sports, but I would like to be able to talk about it.
KING: You learn a lot by asking.
HANDLER: Yeah.
KING: OK Chelsea, in your second best-seller, "Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea," you imply you drink a little.
HANDLER: I'm Chelsea and I drink, and her name is Belvedere. I can send you a case.
KING: Why do you choose that brand?
HANDLER: It's the best vodka out there. KING: They all taste the same.
HANDLER: No, they don't, Larry. They don't taste the same.
KING: They're all bitter.
HANDLER: They don't all taste the same. Have you ever had Belvedere vodka?
KING: No, I taste sips of vodka. As Jackie Gleason said to me once, if Coca-Cola could do for me what vodka does for me, I'd never would drink vodka again. Which is true, isn't it? You can't say it's a great taste.
HANDLER: It's not the best -- it's weird, though, because you don't think beer tastes good until you get older and then you appreciate a nice cold beer after you do, you know, a long hike or something ridiculous.
KING: You wrote that being a redheaded man is pretty much a lose/lose situation. You didn't have Conan in mind?
HANDLER: No, no, but I did send him a note when he moved to California saying "Wear sun block" because your skin is really, really white.
KING: Are you against red-headed men basically?
HANDLER: In general I think it's a little bit of a ridiculous look. Is that why you wore the red suspenders for me?
KING: No.
HANDLER: Don't get defensive.
KING: I'm not getting defensive. I said no.
HANDLER: I like redheaded women. There's like Julianne Moore is beautiful. Red-headed women can pull it off. Redheaded men need to figure out a situation besides the one they're in, and I feel strongly about it.
KING: So you would never -- you couldn't fall in love with a redhead?
HANDLER: I was involved sexually with a redhead for a short period of time.
KING: Oh, you hate them.
HANDLER: I slipped into a situation that I was not able to get out of right away. And I documented it. It's in one of those books, I can't remember which one.
KING: What did you do in the morning when you woke up?
HANDLER: I woke up and I put on sunglasses. It was bright. It was very bright. It wasn't pretty.
KING: We'll be right back lately with Chelsea. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: We're back. We have a Twitter question for our guest. The question is, Chelsea, who is your favorite person to interview?
CHANDLER: My favorite person to interview is you in between your breaks. I'm learning a lot of fascinating information about you.
KING: You'll have me on your show?
CHANDLER: Yes. You would?
KING: I would do go on the show.
CHANDLER: You are very interesting. You are, really. I know a lot of people wouldn't think that, but you are. I'm just kidding.
KING: Why anger a host? A key member of the Chelsea Lately team is your sidekick Chewy. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHANDLER: I like when he puts his pinky out. Look how he does his pinky when he drinks Shirley Temples.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm it taking the test next month for U.S. citizenship. Thank you very much.
CHANDLER: Cover your ears, Chewy. I'm trying to make him feel like he's a full grown. If he says anything about his little fingers, I don't want him to think he's different. Look, you look like a little DJ.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You better check yourself before you wreck yourself.
CHANDLER: Stupid.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: One might turn this a gimmick. How did you come up with the Chew Master?
CHANDLER: I like that. I like little people, and I like corpulent people. I like bad -- I like big heads and big bodies on small things. I like when there's a lot of --
KING: Let's examine that.
CHANDLER: I don't know what it is. Some people would call it a fetish.
KING: Would you date men smaller than you? CHANDLER: No, I wouldn't have sex with them.
KING: What is the fascination?
CHANDLER: I want to squeeze them like babies, like fat babies.
KING: You wouldn't date a midget?
CHANDLER: No, and I wouldn't date a baby. I definitely -- I like little people. He's so cute to look at.
KING: How did you find him?
CHANDLER: I said go get me a little nugget.
KING: You did? They sent out -- they found Chewy?
CHANDLER: They brought back a couple, but nobody was shaped like him.
KING: Where did they find him?
CHANDLER: I guess at the nugget factory. He's originally from Mexico. Thank god he got out of that mess, because now he's living the high life. He's got a great life with me. I truly love him. He's like part of my family, but I like to abuse him, verbally. Verbally
KING: So you get some sort of kick out of that?
CHANDLER: Yeah, I have a thing for just hefty, you know -- I like fat people.
KING: You've posed in bikinis, right, on magazines?
CHANDLER: Yes.
KING: How do you look at yourself? Are you a very sexy person?
CHANDLER: Do I think I'm sexy?
KING: Yeah.
CHANDLER: No. I don't really -- I think I'm confident. I have a lot of confidence. That can be sexy to some, and probably a turnoff to others. I don't really look -- I don't know how I look at myself. I haven't thought about that question, which is probably a good thing.
KING: Are you a good girlfriend?
CHANDLER: In bed?
KING: Yeah, good in bed.
CHANDLER: I think I would give myself a solid B. That's on a good day. KING: A B? Because there is no A. Are you a good girlfriend?
CHANDLER: I can be a good girlfriend, yeah. I'm a lot to handle, but I think I give a lot, too. I reciprocate well.
KING: You want to be a mother?
CHANDLER: Not that I know of.
KING: Why not?
CHANDLER: You know, I have a lot of nieces and nephews. I have eight or nine, I think, now. I love them so much, and they give me like, you know, a lot of joy and happiness. A lot of that joy and happiness comes from walking away when they are in a bad mood. You know, you get the best of them when you're their aunt and I get the best of them.
I don't know that I would want a child to have to deal with in my life or me. I don't know if that's fair. I would rescue a child. If there was one that needed a better home, I would totally take a child in. But procreating doesn't sound so appealing to me.
KING: Really? I thought it's an instinct of the woman.
CHANDLER: I know. I don't have that instinct. I have the instinct to be maternal toward a child or any young thing, you know.
KING: Or someone with a big head and a round body.
CHANDLER: If God could guarantee me that I would have some ridiculously sized headed baby, then, yes, I would go for it.
KING: If you knew you could have a baby with a big head and round little body, you would go for it?
CHANDLER: Yes, of course, if I could make my own nugget, I would do that.
KING: That would take quite an epidural. Who is Hollywood's next train wreck. Chelsea will give us a clue, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: We have a call. Let's take it. Sudberry, Ontario. Hello.
CHANDLER: Uh-oh.
CALLER: hello?
KING: Go ahead.
CALLER: Hello, Larry. I just wanted to ask -- I just wanted to ask -- I just wanted to ask --
KING: Chelsea --
CHANDLER: Chelsea --
CALLER: Chelsea who out there makes you laugh?
CHANDLER: Who makes me laugh? Not people that are trying to, usually. My friends make my laugh, but there's always people that aren't trying to be funny, like David Hasselhoff or --
KING: Why do you keep mentioning him?
CHANDLER: -- or Paula Abdul. Because it's the first thing that pops up into my mind. I should come up with a better answer. It's kind of become a pat one. But I get a lot of humor out of things that aren't meant to be humorous. So I have a little --
KING: You see things funny?
CHANDLER: I see a lot things that are funny that a lot of people would take more serious.
KING: Is humor a turn-on to you, if a man is funny?
CHANDLER: Yes, absolutely. I like a man that can keep up and be quick and go back and forth. There's something very --
KING: Do you think you're intimidating to date? You're on television. You're pretty. You do stand-up. Do you think it's hard for a guy to come forward and ask you out?
CHANDLER: Yeah, probably. I wouldn't ask me out. I mean, I would imagine. Nobody's asking me out. So I'm assuming it must be hard.
KING: Do you sit at home on Saturday nights?
CHANDLER: Yeah, I just sit home on Saturday nights and watch reruns of "The Golden Girls."
KING: You're destroying the entire image of you, down the tubes. "Vanity Fair" once described you as a comic with a Beverly Hills bimbo look and borsch belt mouth. Do you take that as a compliment?
CHANDLER: I don't know that I take it as a compliment, but it's true. I am probably. I do have a borscht belt mouth. I do kind of -- I talk the way that I talk. And my father used to tell me that I talked like a truck driver. I finally realized maybe I am a truck driver.
KING: At heart, maybe you are.
CHANDLER: Maybe really, in my heart, that's what I was born to do. I feel like I have a lot of intelligent thoughts and things to say, but I like combing those intelligent thoughts and -- with toilet humor. I think that the two things can live together in a nice, happy space, as long as you conduct yourself with -- you know, in the right manner.
KING: Whose the next celebrity train wreck, do you think?
CHANDLER: I don't know. There's a lot of little kids out there that are getting a lot of fame. I had Justin Bieber on my show. He's pretty confident for a 16-year-old.
KING: How did that happen with him?
CHANDLER: I don't know. A lot of girls go to malls and like to hear little boys play music with their bangs in their hair. You have young sons. Do they have that hair that comes in their eyes?
KING: Not yet.
CHANDLER: Yeah, it's coming. Around 13, watch out for it. I don't know how that comes about. You just hope they're able to maintain. It's very difficult when you see these people, you know, to become successful so early. I don't know how you sustain that.
KING: Too much too soon?
CHANDLER: Yes. I didn't get real success, in my mind, until I was probably 28, 30. And I waited tables for a really long time. And I appreciate it.
KING: What kind of restaurants?
CHANDLER: They were all restaurants that I was fired from.
KING: For being incompetent?
CHANDLER: No, not for incompetent. Just for being by bitchy.
KING: You were rude to customers?
CHANDLER: Yes, I was rude to people. I didn't have a lot of patience for people who had to decide what they want for lunch.
KING: So if I sat down -- I'm a quick decider, so I'm very simple. If I sat down looking at the menu, and you come over, what would you do?
CHANDLER: Well, first of all, I would compliment you on your suspenders. But second, I would say, you're pretty straightforward. But if somebody is lingering and they're at lunch and they act like it's an affair and they can't figure out what they're going to have --
KING: What would you do?
CHANDLER: I would say, make up your mind, you mess. What are you going to eat? I don't have time for people that take that long to make a decision about lunch.
KING: Wouldn't that hurt tips? CHANDLER: I didn't get great tips, I'll be honest with you. So it did hurt tips, bus I was efficient. I was a good waitress. I got the order in. I just didn't want to sit around and talk about it for too long.
KING: Chelsea is from New Jersey. What does she make of the hit show "Jersey Shore"? Next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWS BREAK)
KING: Chelsea you were born and raised in New Jersey. New Jersey is the setting for a number of reality shows right now, including MTV's "Jersey Shore." Watch a sample.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We now have two girls upstairs and two downstairs.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At the Jersey shore, you're never sure what's going to go down?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not going to play this game anymore.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They want to put us in jail.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This summer is going to be awesome. You need to sit back and enjoy the ride.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's the best place on earth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: There's also "Real Housewives of New Jersey." What do you make of this New Jersey thing?
CHANDLER: Larry, I'm from New Jersey, so I'm proud to be from New Jersey. I'm from a nice part. But there are really -- there are parts of New Jersey that look like "The Jersey Shore," and what's depicted on that show. It's pretty -- it can be pretty crazy. So when people get upset and they say, oh -- people from New Jersey get mad about the depiction and say, how can you say that? I'm from there, and it is like that.
KING: You think it's because it's between New York and Pennsylvania.
CHANDLER: Somebody told me that the other day. It's kind of like the middle child of those states. Maybe. I don't know. I didn't see all of New Jersey like that. But these reality shows all -- they're all ridiculous, so why not get New Jersey in the mix?
KING: They're cheap though. Where are you from in Jersey?
CHANDLER: Livingston.
KING: Oh, that's upper class.
CHANDLER: Well, it was upper class. My parents were just like right beneath --
KING: We'll talk about them in a minute. Our CNN hero of the week was a successful five-star chef, gave that up in serve in the streets of his hometown in Madura (ph), India. Naram Krisnnan delivers food and care to hundreds of India's most destitute for free, and he does it three times a day, 365 days a year. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NARAM KRISNNAN, CNN HERO: Because of the poverty India faces, so many people are being abandoned. I saw a very old man eating his own human waste for food. It really hurt me so much. I was working for a five-star hotel as a chef. But the old man changed everything. My name is Naram Krisnnan. I feed and care for the abandoned and mentality ill.
I get up at 4:00 in the morning. Every meal has been prepared fresh.
People are waiting for us. They totally rely on the food which we give. We're feeding almost 400 people three meals a day around the clock. The happiness I see in their face keeps me going. I take energy from them. I want to save my people, and I feel that is the purpose of my life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Amazing, 1.2 million free hot meals served since 2002. To tour Acshia (ph) Home, where Krisnnan plans to house those he serves, or to nominate someone you think is changing the world, go to CNN.com/Heroes. More with Chelsea Handler on April Fools' Day. I don't know the connection. Next.
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KING: I want to re mind you about a special LARRY KING LIVE this Sunday. It's on human trafficking. Tens of millions of people are bought and told into bondage every day. Among the guests, Lucy Liu, Ashley Judd, and Lisa Ling. Hear what they've done to shine a light on a tragic situation. Sunday night, 9:00 Eastern on LARRY KING LIVE.
We've got a Celebrity Tweet for you from Ryan Seacrest.
CHANDLER: Oh.
KING: "You always stroll into E! wearing Lycra and spandex. How often do you work and what do you do? Does Chewy spot you? This is only from Seacrest. Go ahead.
CHANDLER: I do pilates, a lot of pilates, to try to keep myself together. Chewy doesn't spot me. KING: What does that mean, spot"?
CHANDLER: Well, when you work out with a workout partner -- Ryan would know, because he works out frequently, whether you can tell or not.
KING: You can tell.
CHANDLER: A spotter is somebody who helps you so you don't sprain your back.
KING: Chewy can help you?
CHANDLER: No, Ryan is trying to be funny. That's why I'm a comedian. He's not.
KING: I get it. That's a bit. Chewy can't help.
CHANDLER: Chewy can't spot anybody. Chewy couldn't spot a turtle.
KING: Chewy is an apparatus for you?
CHANDLER: He is. He's an appendage.
KING: OK. Lots about your family in your new book. By the way, your late mother was Mormon, your father Jewish.
CHANDLER: Right, and you're married to a Mormon woman.
KING: You were raised how?
CHANDLER: I was raised not Mormon.
KING: Does that mean you were raised Jewish?
CHANDLER: They asked me to choose between Judaism and Mormonism. My one sister told me that with Mormonism, you can't drink, you can't have caffeine, and you can't really have sex. So I was like, I'll take the dreidel.
KING: OK. Lots about your family in the new book, especially your dad. It's not exactly father knows best stuff, for example. Here's a sample -- to be very clear, this have from the book, "my father had no friends. So when he says anything intimating that he does, I know, more likely than not, he's referring to one of his Jamaican girlfriends. None of my brothers and sisters can get an honest from him answer regarding his personal life. To be honest, we'd rather not know the details. We just know he's very secretive, has a prescription for Cialis, and frequently has over young black Jamaican women who are supposedly cleaning, and hide in the bathroom when someone drops by his house unannounced."
How did your father react to that?
CHANDLER: My father said to me, when the book came out, and I was doing the press for this week a couple weeks ago -- he said, please stop telling people I'm dating my Jamaican cleaning lady. People are going to think that I'm unavailable. I said, that's your biggest problem with the story? Is that you're unavailable, that you're off the market? So you're dealing with a ridiculous person.
KING: Is he in Jersey?
CHANDLER: He's in Jersey. He's watching, I'm sure, right now.
KING: You've broken up with your longtime boyfriend, Ted Harbert, the CEO of Comcast, which owns the E! Network and will soon own another. We have several Tweets to King's Things asking if it is awkward having your ex be your boss?
CHANDLER: I would say yes, it's awkward. We don't see each other. Luckily, I'm in a different building than he is.
KING: Why did you break up?
CHANDLER: It was just time to move out.
KING: Still love him a little?
CHANDLER: Oh, yeah. I love him a lot, for a long time. It was time to just --
KING: He'd been a nice catch.
CHANDLER: He would have been a nice catch. He was a catch for about four years while we were together.
KING: Did you live together?
CHANDLER: We did. We lived together.
KING: Wow.
CHANDLER: Yes. So I had to get my clothes in a hurry.
KING: We sent the King Cam out to get questions. Here's one about Chelsea's books. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, I'm Christina. Chelsea, why do you write so many books about having sex?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHANDLER: I only wrote one book about having sex. It probably seems like I wrote a lot more, just because by the essence of speaking about sex people think you're having way more than you're actually having.
KING: You haven't had a lot?
CHANDLER: I haven't had a lot of sex recently, no.
KING: Recently, but in the past?
CHANDLER: In the past, I've had frequent -- yes, I've had many sexual partners. But not as many as you would think somebody wrote a book about. I don't have, like, you know, a hundred.
CHANDLER: How did Jenny -- Jenny McCarthy is a friend.
CHANDLER: Jenny McCarthy is my dear friend. I'm glad you brought that up, because it's autism awareness month. I know you guys do a lot on behalf of autism.
KING: This month, we're going to do a lot.
CHANDLER: so does Jenny. She works really hard. I've seen it first hand. She has me involved with Generation Rescue. I just wanted people to know they can go on, it's called RefreshEverything.com/GenerationRescue. They can go on there and vote and it helps the family get 250,000 dollars, an autistic family that needs the help.
I've donated. It's an amazing cause. I spent a lot of time with her son. What she's doing is really amazing.
KING: if jenny were not with Jim Carrey, would you date him?
CHANDLER: Would I date Jim Carrey? I don't know.
KING: He's funny. He's good looking. He would seem to be everything you'd want, except he's not a midget.
CHANDLER: He's not nearly little enough. He's way too tall. Jim is way too tall. I like to keep my guys beneath -- the same height as Chewy or Ryan Seacrest.
KING: Would you date Ryan Seacrest?
CHANDLER: Absolutely, in a heartbeat. Every girl -- who wouldn't want to date Ryan Seacrest.
KING: What if we brought you two together? I'm a friend of Ryan's. You know him. Why not?
CHANDLER: All right. Do it.
KING: What are you laughing at?
CHANDLER: Ryan doesn't want to date me.
KING: Why? Too old?
CHANDLER: Too old? I'm 35.
KING: For Ryan, that's old.
CHANDLER: Oh, you're right. Thank you. I was like, he's going to start with my age now, too? People think I'm older than say I am.
KING: You would date him?
CHANDLER: I wouldn't date Ryan, no. Ryan wouldn't date me.
KING: Why, how do you know?
CHANDLER: We work together. I would never date anyone I worked with.
KING: Except the boss.
CHANDLER: Except the boss.
KING: OK.
Thank you very much, Chelsea. The book is "Chelsea, Chelsea, Bang, Bang," major bestseller. Why do some men cheat? Can they ever walk the straight and narrow when it comes to sex. We'll try to answer that question on LARRY KING LIVE tomorrow night, maybe use her as an example. Time now for Anderson Cooper -- I don't know what that meant -- and "AC 360." Anderson?
