Life Will Be the Death of Me with Chelsea Handler - Hot Parenting Tips with Sean Hayes

Episode Date: July 4, 2019

Chelsea is joined by Sean Hayes live in Chicago for a second show where they discuss having a complicated family, trust issues and a hysterical story about chocolate cake. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Bell. Connection is everything. I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. Abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Chelsea Handler. Welcome to Life Will Be the Death of Me, a production of iHeartRadio. There are many things dogs can do to make you feel like a better human being, like run toward you.

For the record, I'm not one of those people who cares more about animals than I do about humans, but I am someone who knows that loving a dog makes you a kinder and fuller person. I don't have such luck with babies, and the feeling is fucking mutual. Fucking fuck babies So when I realized dogs were receptive to me I returned the favor My obsession with chow chow mixes came alive only when I rescued chunk and was told he was a chow mix after six years I decided it was time for chunk to have a sibling and

If chunk was my firstborn then Tammy was the stepdaughter that I loved almost more than my own blood Tammy was a tramp and That's what I respected about her the most First of all, she was a chow mix and she had the purple tongue to prove it. Second, everything about her squeamed Guadalajara. She looked like she had survived more than one street fight, and possibly one with an animal that wasn't even a dog. She had one dead ear, alopecia on her ass, a very scantily clad tail, and a gait that

hinted she had withstood hip replacement surgery. Tammy was essentially a Build-A-Bear and I knew that with some maternal attention from my cleaning ladies and some serious nutrition also from the cleaning ladies, I could turn that gate into a fucking swagger. She was exactly the type of dog who could pull off an ear piercing. We rescued Tammy from a facility in Long Beach where, for the record, my cousin Molly said the following, you can't get that dog, she's the ugliest one here. I didn't think she was ugly. I thought she gave new meaning to the term underdog. There was nothing ugly about her,

scrappy maybe, like she could have been carrying a pocket knife, but she needed me. And whatever her name would turn out to be, Tammy, I needed her right back. Even though Molly, my cousin, is 12 years younger than I am, she's smarter and more capable than I'll ever be. But in this particular instance, I knew I had the ability to see what would be overlooked by most everybody else. That's the great thing about Molly. She knows I'm right about the things that get me in the gut. If I want to give a stranger $10,000 and she thinks they're gonna spend it on crack just because I met that person in a crack den, I will defer to Molly. She'll say something along the lines of let's

sleep on that and if you still feel that way in the morning then we'll do it and you'll have my full support that means no but in this instance Molly knew I meant business I was rescuing Tammy and was going to give her what she needed some real-life pampering someone to show her she was special after all when I get dogs they aren't just rescued by me they're getting the love and attention of my cleaning ladies my assistants my dog walker and everyone else who either works at my house or meanders through it on a regular basis older dogs are special because they have had more rejection. Their hope is gone, and even though no one seems

to know exactly how old any fucking rescue dog is, when you would adopt an older dog, you are cramming their last years with love and giving them the security that comes with knowing that they have a home. I've always believed you can erase bad memories with twice as many good ones. Maybe erase isn't the right word. Maybe dim is a better word. After the people at the rescue Center cleaned up Tammy, the two women handling her adoption told me that she could be a really beat-up four-year-old or she could be 12. And then I should ask my vet for clarification when she had her first checkup. When the rescue presented Tammy to us, they had placed a little pink bow in each ear,

the full-bodied ear and the limp one. She looked like a harlot. Once we got her in the car on her way home, we removed those embarrassing gender labels from her ears and got down to business. I looked at Molly. I said, I feel like we have two names to choose from, Bernice or Tammy.

And Molly's like, or Destiny. Destiny is totally underused. The first night I had Tammy home, I had some people over for dinner. I picked her up and I put her in my lap, facing me, leaving both of her curiously stiff front paws positioned around each of my hips, like Shakira. My best friend Mary craned her head over the dinner table,

amazed, and said, Is she hugging you right now? I've never seen a dog do that. Chelsea's making her, Molly told Mary. I wasn't making Tammy do anything. I was showing her the seating options available to her. and one option was on my lap face forward chunk my older dog would never sit on my lap a he was just too big and b he valued his personal space i had finally found a dog who did it

tammy's teeth looked like she was from london so when tanner an assistant of mine took her to her first bed appointment for a once over the nurse called and told me she may need to have all of her teeth removed i said why would that be necessary all of her teeth you have to take out and she goes well because they could all be infected I said, isn't there a way to tell which ones are infected and which ones aren't before you fucking take them all? How will she eat with no teeth? And then she said, well, we won't take out any of the teeth that aren't infected.

I was like, am I talking to a real-life animal on the phone? What are you saying? Fucking vets. I mean, I know you mean well, but I need a straight fucking answer. I was confused by this exchange. I said, I don't want any teeth that aren't infected to be removed. Are we clear? Otherwise, I'll just take her to my own dentist on Monday.

Poor Tammy. I wasn't about to let her move into Bel Air with no teeth. Before the dog nurse hung up, I asked if they had been able to decipher Tammy's age from her teeth's state of affairs. She could be anywhere from 5 to 12. it's hard to say i said it is hard to say i guess is it written somewhere in the journal of medicine for dogs to just say that all rescue dogs are between the ages of 4 and 12 how can it be that

a swab of saliva can determine a dog's genetic heritage yet there isn't a more precise way to determine the age of a dog at this juncture in modern society it's a real question Tammy would allow me to do almost anything to her body and I needed to her to know that she was going to get so tackled with love that her past would become a distant memory replaced by doggy massages, acupuncture and baton twirling she would let out a low rumble growl

and I would go in closer waiting for her to bite my face off but she never once bit me she bit my sister Shoshana and she deserved it Tammy knew I was her captor and that it was in her best interest to just lean in and accept my devotion once I was done showering her with my Harvey Weinstein affection

that's not in the book that is not in the book, I added that you guys are sick, you're sickos all of you I'm not fucking my dog, okay Once I was done showering her with affection, she'd give me a final look to confirm that I was done molesting her and then scurry off the bed and down her doggy steps

into the doggy bed that she'd usurped from Chunk. Once comfortably inside her new bed, she let out a groan that implied, thank God that's over. I couldn't keep my hands off Tammy. I'd put her in a seatbelt in my lap on the way to work when I knew she'd be much happier sitting in a backseat like a normal dog with her limbs free and one of her dead ear out the window.

I can be an effusive lover, and after our initial trial period together, she just learned to deal with my advances. She was just big enough for it to be imprudent to pick her up, but that didn't stop me either. She would immediately stiffen up with her legs outstretched as if she were standing, making her look like a stuffed dog. She was like a taxidermist dream.

Chunk was slim but I'm not sure how to describe Tammy's body It seemed possible that some of her organs had shifted during one of her bar fights and then solidified Her bald spots filled out within weeks and her rat-like tail became full-bodied within her first month at home She looked like an ad for nutrition

She even started following me on stage during the interview segment of my Netflix show and would sometimes prop herself up on the little table between the guest and me. She didn't give a shit about what anybody thought about her. She just wanted to make sure we were in the same room, nothing more, nothing less. She would have been fine if I never pampered or even pet her, but like most rescue dogs, if I walked out of the room, she'd follow me. If I walked into a bathroom, she would open the door with her nose

and stare at me until I was done. Chuck did the same thing, but it was much more needy. He'd open the bathroom door if we were at work. he'd slide headfirst under the bathroom stall and then avoid eye contact with me. I'm like, oh my God, it's so embarrassing for both of us. Where Chunk was refined, Tammy was street. She'd sit down in front of the toilet face to face as if to say, bitch, you need me more than I need you. I'm just keeping an eye on things. Tammy was more like a security guard. She wasn't quite as spry as Chunk, so I didn't bring her on trips with me because she couldn't hop on and

off planes and helicopters, but she was mentally fit, so there was backlash. That's what led me to get a third dog. I thought another dog would help distract Tammy from the fact that Chunk and I were traveling around the world globetrotting. I didn't want her to feel excluded since she was smart enough to hold a grudge. My friend Kate, who loves animals more than people, you know the person I'm talking about. Everyone has one in their life. That's her. She texted me a picture of a dog that was at a rescue in Westwood with a message that read, this guy needs a home and he's part chow chow. This is what people do when they want me to rescue a dog.

They lie to me and say he's part chow chow. I went down to the rescue in Westwood and I picked up our new dog. The girls working there told me he could be anywhere between four and 12. I brought our new family member home and decided his name would be John. He was sweet and goofy and was definitely a big puppy.

I figured he was probably two. That night, in an effort to not overthink assimilating my new brood, I put all three dogs in my bedroom and popped an edible. Marijuana keeps families together. I was awakened by a low rumble that rose to a roar and then to something that sounded like there was a werewolf nearby. When I flipped the lights on, Tammy's mid-sized, corpulent body had somehow wrapped itself around John's like a contortionist.

Thank God for instinct, because I'm scared to think what I would have done had I given it any thought. I screamed, No! And then ripped Tammy off of him. Her eyes were red, and she looked like she was wearing red lipstick, too. I tossed her toward my closet. John was a bigger dog and stronger than I thought, and I couldn't hold him back from barreling toward her.

So I dove right in the middle of them, grabbed Tammy, pushed her head first into my closet, and shut the door. And I scurried to my feet in my staple sleepwear, a bra and a thong. And I fended off John who was growling with his nose through the closet. Once I got him outside my room and closed the door, I sat down on my bed and thought I was going into cardiac arrest. I was gasping for breath as I tried to open my eyes and figure out what to do next. I was scared of both dogs at that point.

I didn't know what they were capable of after seeing Tammy basically shapeshift herself into an anaconda. I moved my hand in my chest to try to self-soothe, I realized my bra had been torn open and one of my breasts had been set loose and was bleeding. I was so confused and so high. I was like, what? I looked over at Chunk and he had wrapped himself up in the drapes. I don't want to call Chunk a pussy, and I don't want to call Tammy a cunt, but I'm just throwing those two words out there. I called Molly, and I told her I was living with a real-life Cujo, and even though I knew it was Tammy's fault, I was scared to open the door and check on John. John was odd man out. Come get

John. It was 12 30 a.m., and while I waited for the coast to be clear, I texted my assistant Brandon to scan the security cameras in the morning and save whatever footage had just been captured. For the next times, my friends and I did mushrooms. John never made the cut because Tammy took him to task. Chunk knew better than to fight over territory he'd conquered long ago. He knew he belonged with me, but he understood there would be random dogs

coming in and out of our lives just the way people did. Tammy was with me for three years and died shortly after the inauguration. She felt the same way I did about Donald Trump. Molly and I were in South Africa at the time, and I got the call while Molly was out getting gifts for her brothers and sisters. She came back to the hotel room where I was sitting in a chair

feeling guilty about traveling so much and not spending more time at home with the dogs I rescued. You gave her a good life, Chels, Molly said, hugging me. No one else would have ever adopted that dog. And do you know how much shorter her life would have been if you'd been home more? After Tammy died, I had some friends over for a small memorial service at my house where we watched the video footage from my security cameras the night of the attack.

It was the first time I had seen the crime scene and Brandon had scored it to the theme song of Rocky. In it, you can see Tammy actually airborne after I got her off of John. The four teeth that I had campaigned to keep ended up biting me right in the tit. That's called getting titty fucked, okay? If I hadn't busted my nut with my topless photo rampage years before, this video would have been released on all of my social media platforms on a loop. Watching the video of Tammy alone pacing in my closet like a large brown bear reminded me what a force of nature she was.

She was an underdog and a badass. She was a fighter. And even though I don't spend much time looking in the rearview mirror, my biggest regret is not ever getting her ears pierced. Thank you. okay we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back behind every night spent making the kids lunches there's a lot of suspense will they finally eat the veggies will the pesto survive the first bite will the lunchbox come home empty half full or come home at all and will you finish episode eight before you're done slicing the cucumbers get bell pure fiber internet with crave netflix and disney plus from 94 a month price guaranteed

for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit visit bell.ca for details and to check availability bell connection is everything when i was 14 years old i was kidnapped and held captive for nine months i survived and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.

They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club part group chat for thought daughters pop culture obsessives and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse i'm eli rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books the internet and the conversations everyone can't

stop having i'm gonna have to look up this story i'm obsessed i'm obsessed from best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments nothing is off the table it's Like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages.

Okay, I'm going to bring out a friend of mine. He's a very good friend of mine, actually. I only discovered that minutes ago. He's a Chicago native, and you may recognize him for a show he's been on for 74 years. It's called Friends. I'm just kidding. It's called Will & Grace. Please welcome Sean Hayes. Hey, guys, how are you? I'm so happy to be here.

Wait, wait, wait. You brought this up a couple times, so I just want to make sure we're all on the same page here. What is the amount of money that you would agree to have sex with another person for? Because I feel like you have a price. Yes, well, everybody has a number. I don't know that I do.

No, no, everybody has a number. No, but I really believe if someone said, hey, here's $50 million, I'm from Saudi Arabia, can you blow me? I'd be like, I can't. No, you could. Yeah, is the answer. Anybody could.

$50 million, yeah. So there's this thing called, yeah, there's this thing called baitbus.com. Have you seen it? Yeah, anybody? okay what do you mean bait like b-a-i-t b-a-i-t baitbus.com and on it um it's like this i don't know if it's still up and running but it's this gay bullshit website and but when on it it's this bus that drives around and this girl sticks her tits out and they find a straight guy on the street and they're like hey she's like hey you want to blow a job he's like yeah so he gets on

the bus and he sits there and she's blowing him and then she's like can i blindfold you he's like Yeah. So they blindfold him and this gay guy comes around and takes her place. Right? Takes her place. And he starts blowing him and eventually he picks the thing up and every guy has the same reaction, right? They're like, get the fuck off of me, what the fuck's going on? And after he calms down, everybody's calmed down, they go, okay, would you do it for 200 bucks?

He's like, no, I'm not going to let you fucking blow me for 200 bucks. And they're like, what about 2,500? And he's like, okay. Right? So everybody has a fucking prize. I like the part of that story where everybody calms down, and then they have an organized conversation about what just transpired.

They negotiate. You were giving a blowjob from a man. Would you like to move forward with that, sir? Yeah. It's the negotiation. It's like a game show. We should do a game show. It's called Bait Bus. It's hard to understand

what you're saying when you say Bait Bus because I thought you said Date Bus and then I thought you said Rape Bus. But here's the thing. You're looking at me, and I'm saying bait. So why is it so hard to understand? You know what I'm saying? All right, let's ask questions.

You know what we should do maybe after, unless you hate this? I just thought of this. Should we take questions from the audience, like Carol Burnett? We don't have it. I would love to, but I don't know if we have it set up. You guys, can we set up for questions? I'll just yell it out, and we'll repeat it. Okay, yeah, we can probably do that.

I'll do it when we have ten minutes left. We'll do questions, and if somebody has them, you can get up and... Which is great. In an orderly fashion. Not now. Not right now. Not right now. Great way to start the show, Sean, you fucking asshole.

I mean, what the fuck? Hey, does anyone have any questions before we get started? Wait, hold on a second. What are your questions? So we can direct the way we're going to behave. I mean, you are like a boner killer. No, I just thought I wanted to get it out. Everybody, let's take a moment of silence.

Everyone write your thoughts down in a journal And then we'll read them from the stage at the end Cheers My god, cheers Thanks for that hot dog Wait, wait, wait This is what we do at work Say that again

Well, wait If we're going to do something Let them take their phones out And do a boomerang or a fun picture Okay This is the Okay, right Let everybody get their phones

And then put them away And keep them out Talk about a boner killer No, I want everyone Listen, just shut the fuck up and follow my lead. Okay, ready? One, two, three. Cheers.

Will and Grace. Okay, now we'll put our phones away so we can all enjoy ourselves together. Okay, so let's talk about the book for a second. It'll take us off into worlds we never knew existed. Okay. Okay, ready? What if we find out by the end of this interview

that I'm gay and you're straight? That would be exciting for so many ladies. What? What do you mean by the end of the interview? So we're going to... Is it okay if I burp? Yes. Wait.

There we go. I know, I'm burping Portillo's left and right. It's really hard to have a hot dog and then come back out on stage. She never had Portillo's until in between shows. Yeah. Awesome. I mean, I don't know how that could be bad,

a hot dog with a bunch of shit on it. You know what I mean? No, but it's the bread, it's the dog, it's everything. And let me tell you... Don't say the dog. And then I had two pieces of chocolate cake. Because daddy's not fat enough. Do you want some chocolate cake?

I'd love some! Okay, so here we go. Did I ever tell you my chocolate cake story? Oh my God, here we go. Okay, so I had a boyfriend who was annoying me. And he had diarrhea. We were on vacation for a weekend. Ted Harbert, you know him, right?

I can't believe you're saying his name! By the way, who used to be my boss? Yeah, yeah. He used to be my boss, too. I bet. So imagine doing this to your boss. That's what makes the story even better. I never thought about it from that aspect.

So he was a very needy boyfriend. I dated him when I started my E! show. I was 27. I started dating him, like, 28, and I stayed with him until I was 32. I remember that. He was 20 years older than me, and I was taken.

He was, like, the boss of the company, and every time he'd come down to the show, I was like, oh, I want to be with him. And charming. Yeah, it was cute. And then I was with him, and I was like, oh, I've got to get out of here. But not until my deal at E! is up.

Oh. It's like, now that that's signed. Cheers. Oh, my God. Will and Grace. Will and Grace. So we're in Laguna Beach, or one of those places you go for a weekend

when you already live in L.A. and you're on a vacation all the time. You're like, where should I go to? A beach or a beach? And so he was like, hey, we were at the pool. We're lying out by the pool. And he's like, hey, I have diarrhea. Let's go upstairs.

You're like, it's so romantic. I was like, why do I have to go with you for that diarrhea? I don't want to go upstairs. I'm at the pool. You're the one who has diarrhea. Don't include me in this. That's your situation. Why are we?

We're not a couple in everything. And he's like, just come up with me. and I was too tired to argue and finally I went up there so he goes and like fulminates in the bathroom. Like, you know, and I'm sitting in the bed thinking about how ridiculous it is

that a man expects us to just sit around while they shit themselves in the next room. I was like, this is so disrespectful. Like, I might now have no value that I have to listen to this squirt shit over there. So we had, it was his birthday the night before and so we had leftover chocolate cake and he was in the bathroom for so long

and you know I was getting so annoyed and that my imagination got the best of me and so I took the chocolate cake and I was like let me just spread some on the sheets genius and see if he comes out like if he's confused about you know cause we'd gotten up first thing

in the morning we're hungover and went down to the pool and never you know came back to the room I'm like just gonna spread this along the sheets and just see and then I put a little bit on the headboard and a little bit on the wall Like, you guys were having, like, crazy monkey sex. It's crazy. And I was like, and he comes out of the bathroom,

and I'm just, like, lying there. I'm like, are you feeling better? And then I just rolled over casually. I was like, ah, what? Ah, ah, ah, ah! And I was like, Ted! Is that you? You shit the bed?

And his look, like, he didn't even think about whether he did or not. He assumed that, yes, he did. And he's looking at this chocolate cake and I rub it in the face and he's like, no, look away, look away right now. And I was like, oh no, you did it, you did this. And then I looked up at the wall,

I'm like, look over there. And he's rolling up the sheets and he's like, we gotta go, we gotta check out, we're gonna just take the sheets and put them in the trunk. And so, at some point during this evil charade, I was laughing, I was trying to pretend I was crying because I was laughing so hard when he started, when he believed me.

I didn't think there was a chance that he would believe he shat the bed and it looked like chocolate frosting. I mean, what an idiot. And you're saying it didn't work out. And so he looks, and at one point I was laughing so hard I had to turn away, you know? And I just pretend, I was like,

I'm so sad this happened to you. And he's like, what? And then he saw me kind of laugh. He's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing? I'm like, nothing, nothing. You didn't shit the bed. It's not chocolate cake. You should have eaten it first.

You're like, oh my god, you shit... Wait a minute. You shit the bed. Because that's what you do when you don't know the difference between shit or chocolate. You taste it. Yeah, did you ever see Caddyshack? I saw that twice, and I saw Porky's,

so don't even get me started. That is the best movie on the planet. Porky's and then Porky's Revenge. So, let's see. Okay, so, in the book, we figure out... Wait. Do you want me to keep... No, I was just talking to another person.

I was going to keep going. I was going to keep going because of the pressure you put on me to fly out here and sit here and ask you a question. So, in the book, you know, Chelsea and I have... Well, I discovered after reading the book how fantastic it was that we have many, many, many things in common. and we're extremely similar in many, many ways. We're both the youngest of five kids.

We both have, you know, dysfunctional families. We both suffer from the same anxiety. Why was your family dysfunctional? Like, what was the bane of your dysfunction? Well, my father was an alcoholic. He left when I was five years old. My mom raised five kids by herself, and so we kind of parented ourselves,

and we... Although your dad wasn't an alcoholic. No, he should have. That would have helped. It's like Trump. It's like, go have a fucking drink, please. Right, right. You're like, I took that one over for you, Pop. Yeah.

I had this love-hate-hate relationship with my dad through adolescence. And once I came back around to my parents, once I had moved to California and I was able to come back and enjoy them for, like, actually, like, you know, adulthood, I hated them so much growing up. I was like, you guys are the worst. Look how you dress. Look at your fucking cars. Like, they had no organization. They didn't know where I went to school. I was like, what?

I mean, I registered myself for school when I was in sixth grade. And then I was like, why did I do that? I totally did that, by the way. Did you? I shit myself in school, yeah. But keep going. I said I registered myself from school. Oh.

For school. So that's a different story. Okay, well, to me it's the same. Keep going, it's fascinating. But I like that you heard I shit myself. Yeah. By the way, when you talk, that's all I hear. Okay, keep going.

I don't know what I was even saying. You registered your dad was, you know, an asshole. Yeah, I know what I was talking about, but I don't know what the point was. Okay, so I'll go back to my mom. Okay, so my mom raised five kids by herself. And when she was two years old, she had cancer. Thank you. And she, so when she was two years old, they had to remove my mom's eye, right?

And as she grew up and, you know, she grows, she had to have multiple surgeries on her eye. Anyway, so then when she got older and she had five kids, and we never, ever talked about it because we're Irish Catholic, right? You don't talk about any problems. Y'all, like, cover it with laughter and, ha-ha, we're happy. And we can't even pay our rent, right? And so, and the heat's turned off in the winter in Chicago, and we're like, this is so fun. And so, so she had an extra eye,

because she had a glass eye like Sandy Duncan. She had an extra, right? She had an extra eye up in her drawer, up in her bedroom, right? So we would have friends come over, right? Calling out a glass eye is like calling out a Scientologist. Yeah, absolutely. I should have put it on a ring, like on a necklace

and just worn it around. But anyway, so she had an extra eye and we went upstairs when she wasn't around when she was out bowling. Good luck, Mom, bowling in one eye. Like, every bowl was a spare. But anyway. So friends would come over

and we'd take the eye from upstairs and they'd knock on the door and there would be a chain on the door and we'd open it up and we'd go, who's there? With the eye. And it would freak the fuck, it would freak a couple kids out

and they just ran home. So did she have one eye or multiple eyes? She had one eye and I'm not even kidding. She had one eye ever since I was born. She would sleep like this. I'm not even kidding. She would sleep like this. Like that, and I'd be like, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom.

Like I didn't know if she was sleeping or awake or what. And then she'd wake up and she'd be like this. She'd go like this. And then she'd wake up around and I'd go, I'm thirsty. And she'd be like, really? And then go back to sleep. I like that you wake your mom with one eye up because you're thirsty.

absolutely go get your own vodka right but my that was my mom she was she was fantastic and she then she um so your mom was like a present i mean even though she was away all the time and she worked all the time she was present when she was home yeah yeah i felt the love i felt very cared for she was the best mom in the whole wide world she started a food bank for the poor and the homeless when she was you know very young and and she did she could she had an option to get a job as like a high-paying secretary or start a food bank with a nun. And I was like, take the fucking high-paying job.

But she, no, I'm kidding. But she was like a saint and she did this thing and she, it's called the Northern Illinois Food Bank. It's part of the Second Harvest. Yeah. So she doesn't get a lot of credit. She started that whole thing. And so she, then she died last year from Alzheimer's.

Thank you. Thank you. Yes. I say that for the same reason your dad when your dad passed away but I was oh so then you were relieved a bit yes absolutely so was she I'm sure and so now you have to

joke about it because if you don't laugh about it you cry and I was in therapy for a year or two years about oh my god am I being a good enough son for my mom who has Alzheimer's trying to take care of her I don't know and you cry every day and you're like oh my god you mourn the death of your mom's spirit before her body

so you cry about there's two deaths with Alzheimer's. There's the death of the person and the death of the actual body. And so I was mourning my mom dying all the time. And then once you get over that, you realize you're caring for this person who you still love, but isn't necessarily still the same person you knew. You start to find the humor and you start to laugh. So I would go into her room and she would, there'd be a giant turd in the toilet. And I'd be like, mom, what are you, you have to, she goes, i don't know who did that that is somebody comes in i'm i'm hand to god somebody came in here and pooped in my toilet it is their turd it is not my turd and i was like okay well let's go come with

me we're gonna flush the other person's turd down the toilet so it's all hilarious it is funny i mean those moments are funny like they're so heartbreaking my mom was in hospice for six or seven days and my brothers and sisters were all sleeping on those like little cots that they pull in and my mom was not conscious or with it at all she was just there to die and they would just give her morphine and stop feeding her and you're so like you know you're just sitting there like watching someone die and we're lying on a cot one night and it was the night before my mom died and my brother glenn who's really sarcastic and perverted was lying next to me and my sister shoshana and my brother roy were on the cots across the room and he went and put his hand

on mine i'm like oh stop what are you doing and he goes how long do you think roy and shoshana have been sleeping together that's really funny and my sister simone's in a chair like clint you're so disgusting but it's like in those moments that's all you have to hold on to because if you're not laughing you're dying too right you know you just want to be some relief from the pain and from the exhaustion, because I think a lot of people, and I think what you're saying is true, I think a lot of people, when they go through or they lose somebody, they're so, feel guilty for being,

it's no fun to see someone die. That's not how they want us to see them either or remember them. It's worse for us. So it is a relief when somebody who's suffering dies. It's much different if somebody's snatched out of your life. You know, that sometimes can be unrecoverable. But I think when somebody dies slowly, you know,

when they finally go, you're like, thank you. I mean, it's just selfish to be anything else, I think. Right, right, right. People think me saying that is bad. It's like, no, it's compassionate. Yeah, I think so, too. Another really fast one was I took her out for pizza one night at her favorite pizza place, and I parked the car,

and we were waiting to cross the busy street to get to the pizza place and sort of standing there waiting for the cars to clear before we crossed, and I hit the lock button on the car, and it goes boop, boop. and my mom thought it was a car she goes up yours up yours like who says up yours oh my god

right who does say that nobody and one time there was the gas station was being you know robbed up the street from us and she goes did you hear there's a stick up at the gas station a stick up from what are you from Spiderman

in 1960 my i was gonna tell you the story about my dad and vodka so my parents didn't drink and so and my brothers and sisters i'm youngest of six so when i grew up my brothers and sisters drink a little but not like i drank or drink and um and so my father we would fight and you know we hated each other i'd fight with my dad i lived with my brother for a year because i hated my dad so much i just thought he was like the devil and he was a used car dealer so he's kind of a shyster and a liar and you know and so i just was like i hate you and then finally i i went to move to california i came back i flew home to new jersey and i drove to martha's vineyard the five-hour drive that we

would go to the summer house every year that makes us sound like we were rich we weren't rich i don't know how my dad got that fucking house so i came home one summer and i he picked me up from the airport and we stopped at one of those we had to drive up to martha's vineyard to the ferry boat and we stopped at one of those uh you know mcdonald's rest stops and it was him and my mom in this dirty, gross caravan that they drove, this Dodge Gold caravan with McDonald's breakfast sandwiches stuck there from 1994.

My parents were just like, not, I'm up and up. And I was like, I'm going to grow up and get cleaning ladies. This is mayhem. So the first time I had any success, I'm like, I need a landscaper and a cleaning lady. I don't want any trouble.

And a nanny. I don't know for who, but me. um and he we stopped we stopped at a mcdonald's and i was grossed out that they were you know because i moved to la i'm like i don't do that anymore and my dad's like oh sweetie really you're not gonna have mcdonald's because you've been living in la for two months and and we sat down i was so annoyed and irritated i was like grossed out by them you know i was in that phase i was 22 maybe 21 and had been away from them long enough to miss them but not long enough to still be annoyed by them and I remember we sat down at McDonald's and he took my egg out of my McMuffin

and separated the carbs from the protein and I look what do you mean oh that's the way of the world sister and I was like oh he's been paying attention and then he took out like a cheap bottle of vodka in a paper bag and put it on the table and go sweetie if we know this whole time if we knew this whole time all you needed was a little vodka we would have given it to you when you were six right right he's like this is your mood stabilizer we understand you now right so now you go i'll have the number three with vodka yeah i finally i mean in that moment obviously i wasn't gonna drink that vodka because i didn't understand the brand but i in that moment i was like oh i have parents yeah in that ridiculous moment i'm like they finally hear me and see me and pay

attention to me so you talk about in the book a lot of a lot of the times it's hard to relate to your mom because she was so sweet she didn't have the the vim and vigor that you had and you wish she had and so was it hard to relate to her growing up yeah it was really i my mom was really she was german but not like you know archetypal or yeah she wasn't archetypal german she was like uh sweet and and like the opposite of what i'm doing you know like shy and demure and lady like That's what Germans are known for. Yeah, right. The Stassi.

So sweet. Sweet, unassuming. She, and she was really quiet, and I was so strong and fierce, and, like, I thought that was my thing. Like, that was my personality. That was who I was. I didn't think it was because of an incident in my life.

I didn't think because my brother died when I was nine years old that I became this person. I thought I was born this way. I'm a fighter you know I'm an independent woman I don't need a man I don't need a baby I don't need anything I'm going to do this my way and I'm never going to rely on a human being in my life again because my brother when I was nine years old said he would come back he was going on vacation and he'd come back to Martha's Vineyard in a week and he never came back he died so you immediately at nine years old have trust issues yeah immediately that is the blueprint for you as an

adult like you stop growing at that age when you were that small I have the exact same thing yeah I mean, I didn't have any family member, but my dad leaving when I was five. How did, did he say goodbye? I remember my dad coming, I remember him slamming the oven door because he made something, just came home to eat something to eat and didn't speak to anybody, and then he was leaving the family, and my mom said, I remember it so vividly, she said, aren't you even going to say goodbye to your kids?

And he literally went, and he turned around and gave me, like, the most idiotic hug and then he left and I watched him drive away and I was like I didn't know what to do with that. I was five years old but I remember it so vividly and then it sticks with you forever and then you don't trust people and then

like we talked about before you have trust issues about like you test people. You test people for the rest of your life like I'm going to test you to see if you'll stick around and I can trust you. Yeah and if I can trust you I'll find a reason not to trust you and then you'll be out anyway. That's

right yeah and it's a stupid stupid cycle until you become aware of it and i am which is in your book i am well yeah identify it identify that your reaction to somebody is like oh like my psychiatrist was like i i am he has acronyms for everything i'm like i'm gonna shove an acronym up your ass by the end of this so it's identification awareness modification because i have a problem with patients like i think people are stupid and i can't deal with them and everyone annoys me and I'm in a constant state of agitation and I told him this and I said, I don't know, everyone annoys me.

I just want everyone to shut the fuck up. Right. Okay, well this sounds like a good time to take a break. Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches, there's a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat the veggies? Will the pesto survive the first bite? Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full,

or come home at all? And will you finish Episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers? Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on Internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell. Connection is everything. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, The weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages.

did your experience with your parents growing up uh affect you not wanting to have kids yeah i mean i'm like they have six kids and they don't know what the fuck they're doing so like i first of all growing up in a big family i don't know if you feel this way i think you do but i would only have six kids like i would want a full house because my brothers and sisters are the ones who kind of raised me and i think you feel that your brothers and sisters everybody was on their own right yeah we kind of parented ourselves yeah so i was parented by my brothers and sisters so i needed them and so i was like if i'm gonna have one kid i'm gonna have six and i don't want any so let's just get a dog get a bunch of fake chow chows whose age i'll never know

i'm like i wonder why my dog died when he was four because he was 17 that's so funny and you know i wrote and i go off on bets in this book and in like a jocular way i'm not seriously like attacking them i think it's ethical and nice and moral that those aren't the right words but like they have a nice job that's good that they're a vet but i really you cannot get a straight answer from a veterinarian right there's never any black or white it's always like well you could operate or you could not right and you're like which one do you suggest yeah it's really up to you it's like we could give you real medication or you could take cbd i'm like do you have a preference he's like again your decision yeah i'm like hey buddy i'm not a fucking vet you

are uh me and scotty my husband scotty we had a couple australian shepherds and one of them his name was buzzy and he uh started having can't well he started bleeding out of his nose so we're like oh my god we gotta rush him i like the phrase started having cancer right he started cancer started totally relatable i started having cancer and then my life went to shit i can't imagine why and so he started bleeding out of his nose so we took him same thing the guy's like I don't know he's probably maybe just

got maybe got a cut from the fence or something like okay and then like three months later a little part of his nose was gone and I was like I don't I don't I've seen pictures of dogs and I don't think that's normal so she what was I saying oh so then

the cancer just completely started eating his nose away and the doctor's like well you could do chemo or you could not do chemo yeah yeah yeah it's very vague and like i don't like vague i like like you know like i like data i want science i don't want like obscure shit i like like that's why my therapist was so good because he was talking about brains and like in a scientific way and he's like oh the amygdala hippocampus i was like yeah yeah i can get on board with that pretending like i wasn't i was there to learn when i was there to test him out to see if he was a decent enough therapist

that i could actually talk to like let's talk about your childhood i was like no my brother died my mother died my father will hopefully be dead by the time this year is over because he just kept living and living and living that's like my mom yeah yeah relief i mean my dad i was i mean it's so mean that we keep people alive like that it's horrible you know it's so disgraceful they don't feel dignified listen to this i called some place in illinois i was when i was in la i called some place in illinois and to find out the laws about the right to die you know those right today right you can do it in oregon you can be euthanized oregon dc um california like if you were diagnosed with an with a terminal terminal disease don't you want to be put down yes

absolutely i do too and i mean i want to be put down even if i'm diagnosed with like a mediocre disease like i do i'm fucking wiped out you know what i mean i got bronchitis i'm out yeah like just put me down and my sister's like we're gonna if you get cancer god forbid we're gonna fight it. I'm like, what do you mean, we? Nosochos? Fuck you. I'm not fighting anything. I don't want to fight it. I just want to go. Nosochos and Fairmos.

You said that you have patience problems, too. Yeah, like sitting through that story. My patience problems... Which part of that is in the book. I loved it. No, wait, but patience problems, and these are privileged problems, and I'm aware of my privilege.

Believe me, I just did a documentary about it. I'm so embarrassed that I might have to move and leave the country because of my privilege. And what we don't realize is our privilege. No, this is great. You just did it for Netflix. Netflix, yeah. It's coming out in the fall and it's called Hello Privilege. It's me, Chelsea. But a lot of us don't really understand

the privilege we have when we're, you know, white. You don't get it because you don't see it. Like, I just thought I fought for everything and I worked really hard in my life and I deserved it. Like, I didn't ever think, oh, wait, what would a girl of color have done in my situation talking about drinking being rewarded for drug use and sleeping around like that just doesn't that wouldn't have been the same thing and so thinking about that is important for all of us

because it is a different to be white in this country in the world it's a completely different experience and we don't think about it enough and the thing i learned from therapy the most is to really understand other people's situations and not think that your experience is the norm right do you feel like it's getting better like the the the handling of the balance of it or do you feel it's getting worse or where do you think it's at i because in hollywood they're doing i think a really really great job about hiring women women of color um and different minorities and what they call diverse i'm just like can't they just be called human beings why does everybody that's not white have to be diverse.

They're just as equal as anybody else. It's a depressing conversation, but it's a necessary one. But how do you think we're doing? I think Hollywood is ponying up because they have to and fine, whatever the reason is, however you get to the party, that's fine, I think.

I don't care about people's motives as much as I care about the action, which I think is important, but I think it's more of a responsibility for the people who have privilege to wake the fuck up and understand that you have a responsibility to people who don't have privilege. And stick your neck out. Don't say you're not

getting involved. Get involved. You have to get involved. You know, like people fought for years and years for us to have rights, for women to have rights, and to not act out on behalf of another community that's been marginalized, or your own community is disrespectful to every single person that came before you. 100%. Yes, absolutely.

For sure. I think people are willing, Eddie and Ava. People are galvanized now. We were a little bit sleepy, and people got comfortable. myself included, I thought, oh, Barack Obama was the president. Racism is over. Hillary Clinton's going to be the next president. So feminism is cool, too.

Now I can really party. Before we get off, I want to read a little passage. So these bracelets I'm wearing are called they're not called anything. They say I Decide, and they're t-shirts that say I Decide. All the proceeds go to LGBTQIA. Sure. Which I believe should

just be Q. It's too exhausting. It is a lot of letters, but, you know, we're just trying to respect it, you know? No, me too, but I am one, and I should just be cute. Right? Hold on. On the subject of death and loss and grief, I think everybody in this room has probably been affected

by somebody dying or, well, yeah, you have been. And I didn't take that issue seriously for a long time in my life because I was successful I had a great career I had everything I had lots of success and if you define that by materialism I had it all and I didn't ever think I had the right to be upset about anything and I didn't want to go to therapy because I thought that was narcissistic and so when I finally was when I had to go to therapy because I was so angry about the election and my therapist explained to me why I was really angry I kind of unlocked my brain for the first time as an adult. And I realized that I was allowing my brother's death to define my entire

existence. Karen, do you know what page this is on that I'm looking for? I have Sean's book. I forgot mine. And it's where the wild things are. Okay. Yeah, here it is. I'm going to get up so you can look at my ass, Sean. Hold on. Let me get my camel toe out. It's like my vagina is getting bigger. Hold on. I didn't know then that my brother's death was defining me. I didn't know that I had the ability to say no to being defined by death. Now I was with a person, my psychiatrist, who could help me process what happened and turn the parts of me that acted like a nine-year-old into a self-actualized adult who had come to a better understanding of what it means to dig deep and admit that you are in pain, thereby beginning the process of relinquishing your pain. I was in

a place where my brother dying no longer had to define my existence. It's part of who I am, perhaps the biggest part, and it may have helped steer me in a certain direction, but it is not all of me. I define me. No event or person does this. I define me. I decide who I am and how I'm going to behave, and I choose to be better, to look at myself more carefully, to trudge deeper, to think about other people's pasts and not judge someone for doing or handling something differently than I would. To understand my limitations,

my shortcomings, that is my growth edge. I decide who I am. Thank you guys for coming to The Late Show in Chicago. And thank you to my boyfriend. Okay, we have added dates to my stand-up tour. They are available on ChelseaHandler.com or LiveNation.com.

And the book is Life Will Be the Death of Me. Thank you for listening. Brandon, do you have anything you'd like to add about, I don't know, the LGBT? Oh, we should add all of our proceeds for the LGBTQIA True Colors. We donated all of our T-shirt and bracelet proceeds from the first half of the Life Will Be the Death of Me tour. You know what? I do have something to say. I finally made it out to a live show, and it was incredible.

So anyone who has not gotten their tickets yet for any of the upcoming stand-up dates should get that. Good night. Thank you. Life Will Be the Death of Me is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a

weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books the internet and pop culture with your favorite writers book talk creators and plenty of overthought opinions listen to pro society on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts on the new podcast solita we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman i can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle, I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinheiro, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to

reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human