Last year, Chelsea Handler grumpily finished out her contract at E! and decided to make Netflix her new home. “I could have gotten paid $10 million a year for the next five years,†she said at the Forbes Women’s Summit on Wednesday. “I thought, This show isn’t as smart as me. I want to do a show that’s smarter than me.â€Â That show would be four “docu-comedy†specials, where Handler would do deep dives into specific milieus. She told Steve Forbes what topics they would be: “Chelsea Does Racism,†“Chelsea Does Silicon Valley,†“Chelsea Does Marriage,†and “Chelsea Does Ayahuasca†(a psychoactive drink made from a South American vine), because obviously, it wouldn’t be a Chelsea Handler special if she weren’t on something.
Handler and her team just got back from filming in Alabama for “Chelsea Does Racism,†where she told a story of one man who thought the biggest misconception about the South was that slavery was all bad. We already knew that Handler visited the Twitter offices topless for “Chelsea Does Silicon Valley,†and for “Chelsea Does Ayahuasca,†she plans to fly down to Peru and drink the traditional hallucinogenic brew with a shaman while on medical supervision. But don’t worry, she’s not going to mix her drugs. “I’m not going to be on any other drugs on camera,†she said. She’ll try out others, too, like a sleeping pill, Xanax, or shrooms, “just to show what happens in your brain when you’re doing these things and how irresponsible some are, and how some are just, you know, real fun.†Party on!