HANDLER ON BEING ON TOUR, HORNY AND COUPLED
On eve of Palace stop, comic talks of Jo Koy, mocks Albany hotel suite
Last year, when most conventional routes to sexual assignation were discouraged, slowed or completely blocked by pandemic-related restrictions and general caution, the comedian and author Chelsea Handler set up a coronavirus testing station in her home.
"When I started seeing if I had any potential penetrators, ... I'd give them a nasal swab and interview them while we social-distanced and waited for the results," says Handler, who will perform Friday, Oct. 15, at the Palace Theatre in Albany.
If the guy flopped conversationally, "I would just tell them their COVID test was positive and they had to leave," says Handler, chatting on the phone last week while in Maryland as part of her Vaccinated and Horny Tour. It started with a few dates in mid- to late summer and has three dozen shows from this month through mid-december, taking her throughout the country.
One of the rejected suitors got the boot for dismissing the wearing of masks: "I found out he wore a mask at work — he was a welder!" says Handler.
Her conclusion: "Men make it so hard these days. ... I was interested in having sex with them, but they all blew it."
As to whether this actually happened, Handler is adamant: "It's true. I did that to three different guys . ... It was the bottom of the ninth, and they somehow managed to screw it up."
Such frank, zesty talk has been a hallmark of Handler's career on stage, TV and books since she started in stand-up more than 20 years ago. She hosted the hit talk show "Chelsea Lately" on E! from 2007 to 2014, another talk show Netflix in 2016 and 2017, has developed and produced a variety of series based on her characters or others' talk shows, and five of her six books have made The New York Times' bestselller list, including "My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-night Stands," her first book, released in 2005.
"I incorporate all of my real-life experience into my work," says Handler.
That includes her latest romance. Although as recently as Sept. 3 Handler posted a video on Instagram expressing happiness at her decision to be "childless and alone" as an adult, a new beau was in the offing. By Sept. 25, she had become "Instagram official" with fellow
comic and longtime friend Jo Koy, with the two posting photos of them together and announcing they were a couple.
It was evident a day earlier, when Handler made a surprise appearance in Albany to open for Koy's performances at The Egg in Albany. The pair showed off photos and videos of them around town, including in a coffee shop and on the Empire State Plaza, and they were spotted in a downtown bar in a post-show canoodle.
Handler and Koy have known one another for at least a decade. Koy insists it has been longer, Handler says, tracing their first meeting to a joint appearance on a show with comedian Jon Lovitz, but she doesn't recall it.
"I've forgotten more than a lot of people remember from that period," she says. (The title of her second book was "Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea.") In any case, Handler and Koy reconnected.
"We were hanging out a lot, and we always had a good time," she says, spending six or seven hours together some days, going to lunch, strolling the Santa Monica pier or just running errands.
"We were going on dates without anything happening," she says.
Confessing, "I'm the last to know anything that's going on in my (romantic) life," Handler says she was resistant when friends insisted the two had become a couple without either realizing it.
"I'd tell them, 'No, Jo is like my brother,' and then I ended up having sex with my brother," she says, adding, "Well ..."
Suddenly, she says, "I looked at him in a way I hadn't
thought of. When you've become really good friends, you trust them in a different way ... and I was like, 'This could be my guy,'"
The online chronicling of their romance has even included a couple of cooking videos, one of which was chicken adobo, a nod to Koy's mother, who met Koy's American father when he was stationed with the U.S. Air Force in her native Philippines.
Handler warns not to be overly impressed by Koy's cooking.
"My housekeeper did all the prep. He just put it in the pan. That's not cooking," says Handler. "He talks a good game (about cooking), but so far he hasn't been able to back it up." Referring to the chicken adobo, she says, "It was delicious, but that's because my housekeeper is a great cook."
When Handler and Koy stayed in Albany for his shows at The Egg, they posted a video mocking their hotel suite, which featured a spiral staircase, because the carpeting on its steps had splotches that the couple declared looked likely the result of sexual activity.
For the record, Handler has never had sex on a spiral staircase.
"Never on a spiral staircase! Those are sacred to me," she says.
However, the hotel had placed chocolate-covered strawberries in their room prior to arrival, which, in the calculus of touring stand-up comics who stay in hotels multiple time a week, offset what Handler says were "questionable stains" on the stairs.
She says, "The chocolate-covered strawberries evened the score a little bit."