Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me - Chelsea's Family, Friends [38]
I became so jaded at points in the vacation that I thought about checking my e-mail. Before we left for the trip, I had made a promise to myself and, most important, to Shannon, that I wouldn’t check my work e-mail during our honeymoon. I was going to focus on her and total relaxation—that was it.
I made it through Italy okay, mostly because my fat face was too busy buried in a plate of pasta twenty-four hours a day to think about anything else, but by the final few days in Greece, I was bored. Sure, we were at a beautiful resort, but it was nothing but sunlight. I can’t stand the sun; it gave me melanoma once, so now I avoid it at all costs. In fact, when we sat by the gorgeous, peaceful infinity pool overlooking the deep blue sea, all tranquility at the resort was rudely disrupted every twenty minutes by one of the pool boys coming over to our chaise lounge and rotating my umbrella—by physically scraping the base of it across the pool deck. This was done to ensure that not one ounce of my skin was ever exposed to the sun. The other guests would look over, I would nod and give an apologetic wave, and Shannon would scold me. It was, however, great service.
Even in total shade, there is only so much sitting out I can do. I get restless and fidgety. Yes, the view was spectacular and my wife was—and is—gorgeous, and it was such a special place… blah, blah, blah. But I was fucking bored. And that’s when I made the fatal mistake of checking my work e-mail on my iPhone.
After a few insignificant e-mails—most of which were from Chelsea and included photos of coworkers in compromising positions—I saw a message from an E! network publicist, John, with the subject line: Time Magazine Shoot.
Our show had been on the air for roughly a year and Chelsea was starting to get some big-time press. Naturally I assumed that John’s message was just an informative e-mail about a Chelsea article and the accompanying photo shoot that would take place in our offices. Basically, these e-mails are code for “Stay the fuck out of the way.”
Instead, this was what I read.
HEY ALL:
THE PHOTOGRAPHER FROM TIME MAGAZINE WILL BE AT YOUR OFFICE AT 11AM TO PHOTOGRAPH ALL OF THE WRITERS. IF THERE ARE ANY PROBLEMS, LET ME KNOW ASAP.
BEST,
JOHN
My heart dropped and my face turned pale. Yeah, I have a fuckin’ problem… I wasn’t going to be there! Shannon saw my look of horror and asked what was wrong.
“They’re doing a Time magazine photo shoot of all the Chelsea Lately writers.”
“That’s great. So why do you look like shit?”
“Because it’s on Friday and we don’t get back to the States until Sunday.”
I don’t think of myself as a vain person per se, but there are a few things I like, and “credit” is one of them. The thought of being left out of a story about the people “behind Chelsea” in an international publication was too much to bear. Other than Tom, I had been with Chelsea the longest out of all of them. I deserved to be there! Immediately my mind began racing, wondering how I would answer all of the nagging questions from family and friends. “Why aren’t you in the big article about Chelsea’s writers, Brad? Does she not like you? Are you really even a writer for her? Are you a liar? Can you still get me tickets to a taping of the show?”
For a moment, rationality prevailed. “Okay, Brad,” I assured myself, “there’s no way this is true. Technically, since we’re not covered by the Writers Guild of America there is no way that E! would allow a whole story to run about ‘writers’ on their network. Plus, it’s Time magazine. Why would they want to run a story about the writers on a stupid basic cable show? They haven’t even run a story about Chelsea. Hell, the writers couldn’t even get a story in Highlights