The year's drawing to a close, which means it's time for gay glossy Out to celebrate 100 homo movers-and-shakers who made 2008 so damn great!
The journos over there are slowly leaking some of their honorees, including Rachel Maddow, who tops the list. And with good reason - Maddow's catapulted to fame as a pundit over at MSNBC, which in turn gave her a prime time slot. Well done, Maddow.
Chelsea Handler is a lot like Becky Sharp from William Thackeray's Vanity Fair (the one played by Reese Witherspoon in that movie no one saw). No really, both Becky and Chelsea are feminist anti-heroes; sleeping their way to the top and holding their own in a male-dominated society (19th century Britian and late night television, respectively). The fact that Handler is currently dating E! Entertainment Television head Ted Harbert, while that same channel has made a killing off her show Chelsea Lately, is further illustration of how symbiotic a relationship can be when you're whoring yourself (figuratively, of course) to the studios.
And ooh, symbolism! Chelsea recently graced the pages of another Vanity Fair when she was chosen to share the cover of Graydon Carter's mag with other female comedians like Amy Sedaris, Sarah Silverman, Tina Fey, and Wanda Sykes. The only ish? Let's not pretend that your fame is totally unrelated to your bodaciousness, Chelsea. "I don't have a lot of respect for women who play up their sexuality. I know I'm attractive, but that's not my best feature. What's up here in my head is more important." Sure, but in order to attract an audience to hear what's in that head Chelsea, you needed to use that attractiveness. Don't knock the beauty standard; like it or not, it helped get you where you needed to be.
We love watching Chelsea Handler conduct interviews because she always asks the questions that are on everyone else’s minds and other reporters are afraid to ask. She invited Madonna’s “short and paunchy” brother, Chris Ciccone, onto her show last night and immediately started the interview by asking, “Why did you throw your sister under a bus?” He proceeds to be as annoying as ever, but we actually sat through the entire segment, which is more than we can say about his stint on Good Morning America.
E! late night television host Chelsea Handler, who is no longer afraid to tell people how she slept her way to the top, is also a do-gooder for the little people. Literally.
She helped her personal assistant Chuy Bravo, who maintains his own profile page on E!'s website, score a book deal. (Even still, Bravo will remain Handler's assistant.) Little Nuggets of Wisdom, pun-ily named because Bravo is a little person, will feature 90 fortune cookie/Jack Handy-esque tidbits.
Nugget No. 1: Work for a nice pretty lady who has connections. [STA]
Looks like E!'s Chelsea Handler isn't so concerned about keeping her relationship with network president Ted Harbert in the closet any longer. When Jossip first broke the story in December 2006, network brass was furious and even made an attempt to cover up our claim, which might've been due to the fact Harbert wasn't yet officially divorced from his wife. Now, she's telling Page Six about what it's like to have sex with a man twenty years older than she: "The sex is great because he knows what he's doing!"
How many ways are there to describe having sex with E! host Chelsea Handler? Let's have her Touré-attending round table discuss it for a full minute, because the commentary on Britney Spears' shrine to Justin Timberlake certainly isn't anyone's time. (Scoll to the :30 mark.) Maybe E! chief Ted Harbert knows a thing or two about all this?
Funny lady Sarah Silverman as Amy Winehouse? At least she's not doing Britney Spears' "lips" on national TV. The Matt Damon philanderer joins SNL types like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Kristin Wiig, and Maya Rudolph, and Chelsea Handler, Wanda Sykes, and Sandra Bernhard in April's Vanity Fair to defend against the argument from the magazine's scribe Christopher Hitchens that women aren't funny. See how Graydon Carter is making a publicity stunt out of his own publicity stunt? That's why he's paid the big bucks. [Popbytes]
We want to have really current about the news of the day and be able to talk about what happened on TV last night. We want people to do ridiculous interviews. I want the guy who stayed next door to Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes at some hotel in Italy or the concierge who’s willing to get fired after he gives us an interview.
…I’m actually looking forward to a new wave of jackasses. With Lindsay, Paris and Britney, I’m running out of material. I’m ready for a Hayden Panettiere or Hannah Montana [Miley Cyrus] to step up to the plate. I’m bored and I’d like to move on!
–Chelsea Handler, comedienne, gossip mongerer and host of upcoming late night talk show, Chelsea Lately [via Us]
Exclusive
In our never-ending mission to chronicle the philandering of top level executives at media companies, we're pleased to bring you word that E! network president Ted Harbert is said to be sleeping with Chelsea Handler, the host of The Chelsea Handler Show, which appears on – you guessed it – the E! channel.
But don't get too excited: It's not like Harbert is cheating on his wife of nearly 30 years or anything. Well, technically he is, but they're separated and on their way to a finalized divorce in the coming months. But it's certainly worth noting that it was Harbert who personally greenlighted Handler's show, which, ironies of ironies, carries the tagline "From one-night stands to kinky classrooms to a spa day with Gary Coleman, this broad's not afraid to get to the bottom of things."
And here you thought Rupert Murdoch and Wendi Deng owned the media-chieftan-sleeping-with-talent scandal.
Editorial Director
