There’s a passage in Chelsea Handler’s massively enjoyable new book, I’ll Have What She’s Having, where she recalls a crushing yet pivotal moment. She was summoned by her friend Jane Fonda to be told she’d behaved terribly at a party and offended pretty much everyone. The New Jersey-born comedian has made her name by telling it how it is. She has presented her own late-night talk shows, The Chelsea Handler Show and Chelsea Lately, both showcases for her potty-mouthed, Alpha-female style and tinder-dry one-liners, followed by Netflix specials, reality TV appearances, documentaries and her own advice podcast, Dear Chelsea. But she knew she had overstepped when Fonda called her out. 

‘Yeah, that was a seminal moment in my life,’ she nods, beaming in from her couch in the wealthy neighbourhood of Brentwood, Los Angeles, for a morning Zoom chat. ‘It was humiliating, mortifying. Most of us are conflict averse but Jane took the time to have a difficult conversation with me. I had to really think about how I wanted to conduct myself. I wanted to be like her. Jane made me understand the importance of sisterhood.’

A quick Google reveals that Handler has millions of devoted fans but also attracts a certain kind of detractor. Back in March, someone compared her to Satan after she discussed abortion and drugs with the Trump-supporting, bro podcaster Theo Von. Surely a huge feather in Handler’s cap, Piers Morgan once called her ‘a disgrace’ and ‘a disaster’: Handler told Morgan that he was ‘a terrible interviewer’ and has given it back to him with both barrels several times. Her own sister calls her ‘one of the loudest people in the world.’

‘I can be very confrontational and I’m not shy about sharing my opinions,’ she understates, when I bring up a cracking anecdote from the book where the vocally anti-Republican Handler got invited to former President Bush’s home for a game of pickleball with her family. Although she detests that game, her brothers and sisters were starstruck and she couldn’t turn them down. ‘I had to take a lot of edibles to subdue my personality that day. At least I knew there is a time and a place for certain conversations and that time, at his house, wasn’t the time or the place.’

But alongside Handler’s no-holds-barred material about sex, drugs and 50 Cent (she briefly dated the rapper), she has become extremely good at delivering sage life lessons on everything from ageing, dealing with ‘pathological negativity’ from others and showing up for the young people in your life. The former ‘brat’ now ‘has her shit together’, as she puts it, after many years of therapy, regular meditation, frequent microdosing and lots of exercise. Now she wants to ‘inject joy’ (not literally, thankfully) into as many people’s lives as she can. 

I’ll Have What She’s Having debuted at number one on The New York Times bestseller list. Her six other books were all bestsellers too, with titles including Are You There Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea and My Horizontal Life: A Collection Of One-Night Stands. Her new Netflix special, The Feeling, is her unapologetic look at dating, family life and her ‘very active drug life’. The 50-year-old is brilliant as she looks back at Young Chelsea (born craving her first business venture, apparently) and gets a huge roar from the crowd when she dips into anti-Republican gags. She’s ultra confident, deadpan, laser focused, always with a twinkle in her eye.

‘I have no problem sharing the good, the bad and the ugly. The flattering and the unflattering. I like to be authentic. It’s why I have fans. They know I’m not full of it.’ Handler makes it clear that she always strives to blend humour with her own entertaining, spiritual, self-help sermons. And the cocktail is potent. ‘I feel more alive and more together and more optimistic than ever. At 50, I have the body I wanted when I was 20. Yes I am confident, and I have positivity and self-assuredness in spades, so I want to spread that self-belief to as many women as possible, especially young girls.’

Although she’s got hours of material on the many advantages of being child-free (being able to take mushrooms in the morning, for one), paradoxically she writes at length about how important the young girls in her life are. When one relationship ended with a boyfriend, Handler stayed close with her ex’s three daughters, whose identities she has hidden under the nicknames Poopsie, Whoopsie and Oopsie. In turn, they call her ‘Father’. Handler writes about taking a parenting course to better understand their needs and she helped to repair the girls’ bond with their frequently absent dad.

‘When those sweet girls came into my life it was very instinctual. You can call it maternal instinct; I prefer paternal. I identify as a stepfather. I don’t think I’d be great at being a mother. But I am great at this. One of the unsung benefits of not having kids is the bandwidth it allows you to have for other people.’

The youngest of six children, Handler’s eldest brother Chet died tragically in a hiking accident when she was nine. She has spoken publicly about the impact that had on her, and also her dad who fell into a period of grief. She has described her dad as a misogynist and the pair fought regularly. Her brother’s death and the rift with her father left her with a sense of abandonment and deep anger, so she reacted by becoming fiercely independent. ‘My own childhood was turbulent and unsteady. But my third-grade teacher really believed in me. She inculcated in me that I was special, that I had something to offer the world. Now I like pushing people in the right direction. Being that big sister. Everyone needs to find out what they like to do and get after it.’

Besides finding her calling as a big sister/stepfather, she’s also on a mission to share her appreciation of drugs. She has invested in a cannabis lifestyle company called Civilized and given talks about the benefits she’s experienced from using drugs. ‘Yes, I’m spreading that message loudly. I’m not talking about cocaine or heroin. I’m talking about mind expansiveness. Ways to uptick your happiness. The show I’m bringing to Glasgow gives a full excavation of the positivity that drugs have brought to my life. MDMA, LSD, psilocybin. There is scientific data and I’ve seen so many people benefit from it. Plus I love to share my drugs. I love to receive drugs from my fans also.’

These days, Handler is a multi-millionaire, travelling the world performing her comedy and doing interviews, and she owns homes in Mallorca, Los Angeles and Whistler, Canada. ‘I think I added 20 years to my life when I bought my tiny ski chalet in Whistler. It’s a place that really allows me to let it rip. It brings me so much happiness. I get to ski all the time.’ In fact, she likes to mark her birthdays by skiing in a bikini with a joint in one hand and a margarita in the other.

'Listen, my vibes are high. You’re not bringing me down. I’m going to have a good time. You can either come with me, or you’re out. I don’t have any problems cutting people from the roster but I also have a very open-door policy. I’m open for sex, open for drugs: please spread the word that I’m hoping my European tour will yield a short-term husband, someone to help me marry and exit my country, or at least a recurring cast of men in different locations.’ Watch out Glasgow. 

Chelsea Handler, whose middle name happens to be Joy, is hellbent on showing her fans a good time. ‘This is a big year for me: I’m 50. I like to laugh and be vibrant, have fun. I’m here to apologise on behalf of my country too. Right now, with the politics in the country I’m from, we need a lot of lifting up. I take that as a kind of personal duty.’  

Chelsea Handler: An Abroad Broad is on tour in the UK until Sunday 25 May; I’ll Have What She’s Having is out now published by Random House; main picture: Jocelyn Prescod/Netflix.