Photo:John Russo; Penguin Random House
John Russo; Penguin Random House
Comedian, television host, six-timeNew York Timesbestselling author and advocate Chelsea Handler is putting out her seventh book — and it’s coming out just in time to be a birthday present to herself.
I’ll Have What She’s Havingdrops this February on Handler’s 50th and much likethe iconicWhen Harry Met Sallyscenethat inspired its title, the book promises to balance the vulnerability and edgy humor Handler’s fans have know and love.
“I wanted to fast-forward through all of my youth and misery, and become the more glamorous, successful, adult version of myself. The woman I’d become would be passionate and fiery and courageous. She’d never be afraid to tell the truth, no matter the consequences. She’d make others feel brighter, better. She’d make a living being herself,” Handler writes of the book.
Below, in an exclusive excerpt shared with PEOPLE, Handler gets real about the first time she really failed as an adult and how she picked herself back up and kept going, not to mention the way everything changed in a head-spinning way just a couple of days later.
Read — and listen to Handler tell the story — in an exclusive audio clip, below.
Chelsea Handler’s ‘I’ll Have What She’s Having’.Penguin Random House
Penguin Random House
Chelsea Handler reads from ‘I’ll Have What She’s Having’
After about five years of doing stand-up pretty regularly around Los Angeles and opening for other comics on the road, I was offered my very first spot at the Just for Laughs Montreal Comedy Festival.
I was prepared because I had been practicing this 10-minute set for months, and I knew this was going to be a very important night.
I bombed badly. Very badly. It was mortifying. I got onstage, my timing was off, my jokes fell flat, and it all fell apart at the seams. Upon realizing how quiet the room became, I sped through the rest of my set and scurried offstage. I was too embarrassed to hang around afterward, and I was too humiliated to see the pity on the faces of all the people who had just watched me tank. My manager didn’t know what to say, because it was an embarrassment for him as well. He had spent the last two weeks inviting every industry person he knew to the show.
Zach Galifianakiswalked me to my hotel room that night. When we got to my room, he told me, “You’re going to want to be alone for a while.” This was at a time in my 20s when I needed other people to make me feel better when I was feeling bad. But there was no one who could do that. He was right. There was no one to call, and no one who was going to make me feel better.
That night was one of the worst nights of my early adulthood. I sat in my room, wondering what the hell I was going to do with my life. I had never felt so ashamed. How could I have blown such a big opportunity? How long would it take me to redeem myself? And how would that even happen? I didn’t call anyone from my family, which I always did after a successful show. I sat alone, in shock, and cried, like my life was ending — before it had even begun.
I had another show the next night, which went a lot better, but it didn’t matter, because no one from the industry came. My manager tried to round up some executives to come give me another shot, but everyone had moved on to the next talent who had buzz around them.
No one was interested in offering me a second chance, and I really couldn’t blame them. The idea that so many people thought I was untalented made me physically ill. It was the first big professional failure of my career, and it hurt badly.
When I got back to Los Angeles that Monday, my manager called and told me that Grace Wu from NBC hadn’t been able to make the show in Montreal, and was asking if I had any sets that week that she could see. Grace was the only top-level executive who hadn’t been at my show in Montreal, and she wanted to see me perform.I called my friend Sam Brown and booked myself on a show for the very next night at a club called Luna Park.
I crushed that show at Luna Park. I did the same exact set, and because I had nothing to lose, I was calm, secure, and my timing was on. The pressure was off, and I went up there and did my thing, and I did exactly what I had hoped to do at the festival three nights earlier.
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It took only 72 hours for every feeling I had in Montreal to be turned on its head, and for the future to be bright again. I think of this moment often when things aren’t going well, or when a friend of mine is going through a tough time. So often, we are ready to give up or throw in the towel when, right around the corner, there is a pocket of sunshine we hadn’t known was headed straight for us.Even in my lowest moments, I keep my head geared toward the sky, because I’m no longer in the business of missing rainbows.
Everything can change in an instant. And more important, it doesn’t matter how many people say no. All you need is one person to say yes.
I’ll Have What She’s Havingcomes out Feb. 25 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.
source: people.com
