Chelsea Handler says therapy helped her not lose temper while interviewing conservatives for white privilege documentary
Comedian and actress Chelsea Handler said she needed therapy to ensure she didn't lose her temper while interviewing conservatives about white privilege for her new documentary. Her comments came while she was discussing her Netflix documentary, 'Hello Privilege. It's Me, Chelsea.' -- which "revolves around examining the concept of white privilege, the societal privilege that benefits white people over non-white people" -- on 'The View.'
During the episode, co-host Sunny Hostin brings up one of the interviews featured in the documentary involving a group of white women.
"There was one scene in particular where you have the four white conservative women," she tells Handler. "And they said a couple of things. When you asked them what white privilege was to them, one said, 'Black people have privilege too! But white privilege may mean growing up with a mom and a dad, which you don't see a lot in the African-American community. One of the parents is always missing.'"
"One of them said, 'Black people have a lot of privilege. Look at colleges. They get into colleges, they get jobs based on their skin color and I don't think that's right,'" she continued. "And finally, one said, 'It's time to move on and quit talking about it. We've come so far. This issue is minuscule and the way people are reacting is making it bigger.'"
When Hostin asks Handler what her reaction was when they said those sings, the 44-year-old replied, "Well, listen, I had to do a lot of therapy to even have these conversations with people because I have a temper and I'm reactive."
"When somebody's annoying, I want to tell them that they're annoying or that they're stupid," she continued, as co-host Joy Behar nodded and smiled. "But my exercise in this film was to be more quiet and to stop inserting myself and saying 'you're wrong, you're wrong,' and to let them say -- to be actually just kind of a space for everybody to speak openly."
The comedian said that while it appeared from our perspective that the women had "hung themselves out to dry," from theirs, they "really believed that" and asserted that it was important to understand what everyone was thinking and believing.
"The first step is to have a conversation," she added. "Me screaming at them doesn't get them anywhere."
'Hello Privilege. It's Me, Chelsea.' premiered on Netflix on September 13.