After eight seasons of Chelsea Lately, comedian and talk show host Chelsea Handler decided to leave the E! network, stressing she wanted a change of environment. The 46-year-old, who says Americans don't believe climate change is real, announced that a ninth season was out of the question because she had plans to move to another network, and while she wasn’t sure where she’d end up after leaving E!, Handler was excited about what the future had in store for her career.
It wasn’t long after her announcement to leave E! was followed by reports she had inked a multi-year deal to front her very own talk show on Netflix. As the premiere of her new show neared, Handler embarked on a promotional tour to spread the word about her new project while also addressing her decision to leave the E! network, making it clear that her exit had nothing to do with what she was earning at the NBC-owned company.
She felt uninspired and far from passionate as far as her contributions to her show and to the network as a whole. Covering the lives of the Kardashians got boring after a few years, and so was the idea of continuing to interview celebrities she didn’t care about — but since her show was driven around pop culture, she carried on until pulling the plug in 2014.
It’s believed that Handler - who once dated rapper 50 Cent - has built an impressive $35 million, but not all her fortune was made from her seven-year stint on E!. Here’s a rundown of her earnings over the years.
Chelsea Handler’s Net Worth
In November 2011, Deadline reported that Handler had renewed her contract with E! for another two years, starting in 2012, which meant that Chelsea Lately would continue to run with weekly episodes until 2014.
What was interesting about the deal was that, according to the report, Handler earned a cool $25 million to continue starring and executive producing the popular late-night show. But little did the E! network know that after her contractual obligations, the blonde beauty was ready to jump ship and develop something new and fresh.
Following her departure from E!, an official statement in 2014 from Netflix announced that Handler would be joining the streaming giant to front her own talk show.
“If I was going to continue working in this industry, I knew I had to do something outside the box to keep myself interested,” Handler gushed in her own statement.
“I wanted to sit with the cool kids at lunch, so I approached Netflix to make sure they were as cool as I thought they were, and when I confirmed my suspicions, like with any other future lover, I made my move.”
“I’m more excited than I’ve been in a while, and the team at Netflix is the most forward-thinking, alert group I’ve sat down with in ages,” Handler added. “No offense to the Shahs Of Sunset.”
Not only did Handler land a talk show with Netflix but the company had also given the thumbs up and secured a stand-up comedy special by the New Jersey native, titled Uganda Be Kidding Me.
Before the year’s end, there were also talks that Handler will lead another Netflix show, titled Chelsea Does.
According to Uproxx, Handler signed a $10 million deal for her chat show with Netflix, giving a clear indication that the company had high hopes for the program and put her in direct competition with other talk show hosts such as Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon.
The aforementioned chat show hosts earned $10 million and $11 million, respectively, at the time, so the fact that Handler was just about to start her run on a streaming platform was risky, but it clearly paid off because it was extremely lucrative and allowed her to think outside of the box with topics she wanted to cover.
In 2016, Handler told Business Insider the real reason why she was ready to call it quits over at E!, saying that while she loved her job at first, she became uninspired by the lack of growth she made — aside from the money aspect of things.
“I loved my show on E! for a while and I had fun doing it, but I don’t think I respected the position that much and that’s ultimately why I wanted to leave,” she said.
“I didn’t really have a lot of respect for what I was doing, so it was hard for me to respect the job. And even though it was a silly job and who needs to respect it, at the end of the day you want to be doing something that you’re really proud of. And here I feel like I am doing something much different.”
Since leaving E, Handler has also released two books; Uganda Be Kidding Me and Life Will Be the Death of Me. In 2019, Netflix offered her yet another show, titled Hello, Privilege. It’s Me, Chelsea.