‘Wear a diaper’: Chelsea Handler talks about Omaha show, new relationship and laughing too hard | Arts and Theater

Comedian Chelsea Handler is looking for a few things when she brings her stand-up tour to Omaha this week: a good steak and someone who will laugh so hard that they wet themselves.

“I like it when somebody pees in their pants from laughing too hard,” she said in an interview with the Omaha World-Herald. “There’s always one person.”

The actress, writer, producer and television host will perform at the Holland Performing Arts Center at 8 pm Saturday. Handler is also a best-selling author and has appeared on Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” list. Among several other television and film projects, she hosted the late-night comedy series “Chelsea Lately” on E! for seven years and later the talk show “Chelsea” on Netflix. Her latest televised stand-up special, “Chelsea Handler: Evolution,” is now streaming on HBO Max.

Her newest book, “Life Will Be the Death of Me,” is being turned into a show for Peacock that Handler will star in. In the meantime, she said she is enjoying her tour and her return to the stage.

“You’re up there with a microphone in front of a crowd and you get to say whatever you want and you’re not reading somebody else’s lines, you’re writing them,” she said. “That’s the artistic freedom that I like. My whole career has been built around my point of view and my personality, what I want to do and what I want to say. And that has been a huge advantage for me and a huge comfort.

“I don’t have to take a lot of direction from other people. I am known as a comic and a personality who has my own opinions and who shares them. ”

Like most of the world, the COVID pandemic sidelined Handler for a couple of years, but she said she takes it in stride and discusses it in her live show.

“I don’t really have anything to complain about. It was an interesting time for trying to date, ”she said. “I had people over and would give them COVID tests in my backyard. And if they said anything annoying, I would just come out and tell them they were positive – so I had fun with that. ”

Handler is working on a new book about her romantic relationship with comedian Jo Koy. The couple have been friends for years and Koy was a frequent guest on “Chelsea Lately.”

“It really is a love story and it’s so sweet,” she said. “It happened to someone like me who had written off men for a long time. I think it will be inspiring for a lot of women. ”

Saturday’s show will also address other personal anecdotes with “vibes of female empowerment” and stories about her two dogs who, she says, have no respect for her. With or without accidental urination, she said her hope for the show is to “remind people about togetherness, humanity, hilarity and laughs.”

“It used to be that someone used to be really wasted and would be removed. But now, with growing older that has transitioned into someone actually urinating on themselves, ”she said. “And I take a lot of pride in that. I like to make people laugh so hard that they lose their faculties. So wear a diaper, I guess. ”