Chelsea Handler needed therapy before interviewing conservatives for white privilege documentary

Chelsea Handler “had to do a lot of therapy” before she interviewed right-wing Republicans for her new documentary, the comedian has claimed.

Handler is the host of Netflix’s Hello Privilege, It’s Me Chelsea, which sees her explore white privilege in America and how it has benefited her own professional career and personal life.

One encounter in the film sees Handler speaking to right-wing women who claim that white privilege is a “miniscule problem” and that people don’t speak enough about “black privilege” in education and in the workplace, and later suggesting that single-parent families are rife in black American households.

Speaking on the US talk show The View, Handler said she had to prepare herself for the encounter.

“I had to do a lot of therapy to even have these conversations with people because I have a temper and I’m reactive,” she explained. “When somebody’s annoying, I want to tell them that they’re annoying or that they’re stupid.”

She went on to explain, however, that she intended the documentary to be about listening to other people’s viewpoints.

“My exercise in this film was to be more quiet and to stop inserting myself and saying ‘you’re wrong, you’re wrong,’ and to let them say [things],” she said. “To [create] kind of a space for everybody to speak openly.”

Hello Privilege, It’s Me Chelsea was released on Netflix last week. Writing for Vice, journalist Kristin Corry said the documentary sees Handler “stumbling through a well-meaning but misguided reckoning with her place in the world”.