Comedian Chelsea Handler has said that she had an identity crisis after President Donald Trump was elected president.
Appearing on HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher” on April 5, Handler described what happened.
“Everybody took the 2016 election hard,” said Maher, who may be sued for an expletive-ridden rant targeting a Kentucky teenager.
“I didn’t know you were suffering … I didn’t know it really knocked you down like that,” Maher added.
“I had a mid-life identity crisis once Trump won,” Handler responded. “Because I had never felt my world be so unhinged.”
“I had to pay a psychiatrist to listen to me [expletive] about Trump for about the first three weeks,” Handler added.
“And then once when we got past that and got to the real stuff, I realized the parallel there was my world becoming unhinged when I was a little girl. My brother died when I was 9 years old. I had never related the two, but for me, as I can imagine it must have been for so many people, it was a huge emotional trigger of everything being destabilized.
“And I realized just how spoiled and privileged I’d been all my life to be at a 10 every day and all this outrage and anger. I just wanted to [expletive] fight people. And I was like, ‘I got to go see a psychiatrist,'” Handler added.
Handler later added that the election of Trump prompted her to smoke marijuana, pivoting to the drug and mostly giving up alcohol.
She and Maher also defended former Vice President Joe Biden, who has been accused by multiple women of invading their personal space as videos showing Biden touching children and women during his time in office circulated widely.
“I have to know what you think of Joe Biden and that whole thing,” Maher said.
“I think Joe Biden is just a grandfather, you know what I mean? And he’s old,” Handler replied. “I don’t like comparing—I don’t like these stories of these women coming out and talking about a man smelling their hair or kissing the back of their head. I think it diminishes people who have actually experienced [expletive].”
Maher said that was the point he was attempting to make in his opening monologue.
“We’re getting a little nit-picky,” Maher said during the monologue. “No one likes to be touched unwantedly, and women get lots more of that than men. But the first person who brought this up said he made her feel gross and uneasy. You know what makes me feel gross and uneasy? A second Trump term!”
“He’s not Harvey Weinstein or R. Kelly. He’s more like the TSA,” Maher added.
Presidential candidate Julian Castro, a Democrat, later pushed back when Maher said that Biden “should joke about” the accusations by women. “I don’t think it’s a big deal,” Maher said.
“I disagree,” Castro responded, saying he thought Biden was out of line and out of step with the times. For too long, he said, women have been told they have to be quiet “about stuff like this.”
Maher said that Biden’s behavior was “not the same as sexual harassment.”
Castro said men should “understand it’s not just your intention, it’s also how your actions are making somebody feel.”
“I think it’s [expletive] to say people can get away with laughing it off,” he added. “I think that’s completely the wrong way to look at it.”