Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me - Chelsea's Family, Friends [39]
I took a few deep breaths, allowed the pool boy to rotate my umbrella, and tried to relax. I couldn’t.
I turned to Shannon. “If this is a joke, why would John Rizzotti have cc’d all of the big executives at E!? He can’t be bothering all of them with pranks like this. Plus, I made it very clear before I left that I wasn’t checking my work e-mail, so if this is a prank, they wouldn’t have sent it to my work e-mail. This has to be real!”
I immediately pounded out an e-mail to Chelsea and Tom.
CHELSEA & TOM:
WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH THE TIME PHOTO SHOOT? THERE’S NO WAY THEY CAN SHOOT IT ANOTHER DAY?
Tom replied.
NOPE. SORRY. YOU’LL JUST BE LEFT OUT. WE’LL TRY AND MAKE SURE THEY AT LEAST MENTION YOUR NAME IN THE ARTICLE.
“Try and make sure”? What the hell? How dare they? I had worked my ass off for Chelsea and all I could get out of them was a “we’ll try”?
All of my instincts told me that this was a lie, a total hoax. But my instincts had also once told me that Sugar Ray was a great band with staying power. So, clearly my instincts weren’t always spot on.
I was obsessed. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Suddenly I became the worst person in the world to be with.
“I want to go home. This honeymoon sucks. I knew it was too long. I told you,” I said to Shannon as my pool umbrella was being rotated yet again.
Now Shannon was pissed, and for two very valid reasons. One, the anxiety it was causing me was ruining her honeymoon—the operative word being her. Two, we were in paradise and I was now being a complete asshole.
I had to get to the bottom of it, but if it were a hoax, I knew Chelsea and Tom wouldn’t crack that quickly. I had to go to another source. I went to the weakest, most guilt-ridden person I knew: Johnny Kansas. If I tugged on his heartstrings hard enough and played up how emotionally distraught I was, he’d break down and tell me it was all a lie.
JOHNNY, YOU’RE THE ONLY PERSON I CAN TRUST. THIS IS RUINING MY ENTIRE HONEYMOON. IS THIS TIME MAGAZINE SHOOT REAL?
Little did I know, Chelsea was one step ahead of me. She had already descended upon Johnny, knowing full well that I would try to exploit his weakness in my quest for the truth. Like a terrorist holding an AK-47 to the blindfolded head of her hostage, Chelsea had forced Johnny to go along with it.
He responded: Yes.
Recognizing that he could be monitored, I waited a few minutes and wrote again.
JOHNNY, THIS IS RUINING EVERYTHING. IT’S THE LAST DAY OF MY HONEYMOON AND SHANNON IS PISSED. PLEASE TELL ME THE TRUTH. I KNOW I CAN TRUST YOU. DON’T BETRAY THAT.
Johnny’s an easy one to break. All you have to do is question his trust and loyalty, and he instantly squawks. But this time there was no immediate response, only radio silence. My heart sank, my head swelled, and my twitches ignited. I waited five minutes and checked again. Nothing. Beads of sweat, entirely unrelated to the heat, began to form. I was not sure what was happening to me physically, but I could only imagine that this was the beginning of a severe anxiety attack. And on a tranquil pool deck in Greece was not where I wanted to lose my shit. I had to do something.
“That’s it, we’re heading home early,” I announced. Shannon freaked, but I told her that she and I had, in theory, a lifetime together but “This may be my only shot for Time magazine.” As she continued to yell at me, I snapped, “Fine, you can stay here and I’ll head home early.” This marriage was clearly getting off on the right foot.
I hustled my ass up to the hotel’s business center, plopped down at a desk, and used the phone to call the airline. We had originally booked first class, but the only available seats were in economy, and the fee to downgrade was almost a thousand dollars—not to mention our having to forfeit the final night at the hotel, for which we’d already paid. “Fuck it,” I said. “Advertisers pay millions to be in Time magazine. I can afford to pay eighteen hundred dollars to be in Time.”
The tickets home were changed—Shannon was coming back early