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After a seven-year run hosting the late-night talk show "Chelsea Lately" on E!, comedian Chelsea Handler was tired of only talking about celebrity gossip. Whatever she did next, she wanted to go after bigger fish: Science, politics, other countries, technology and more.
"I still want to be an idiot, but I want to give information in a fun way, and I want to do something a little more worldly," Handler said on the latest episode of Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher. "I don’t think people were ever tuning in to E! to be educated. They were tuning in to tune out."
With the four-part documentary series "Chelsea Does" and now a new talk show, "Chelsea," both on Netflix, Handler said she got her wish, which means going beyond her old comfort zone. Over the next three years, Handler is scheduled to produce 270 episodes of "Chelsea," which Netflix is translating into 24 languages for 190 countries every week.
"My impetus has never been money," Handler said. "Constantly creating things around my brand or my persona is not interesting to me. This is the first global talk show in the history of television. I want to focus on that and get really good at that."
On the new podcast, she also chatted about catching up to Snapchat after a year away from social media and what she thinks of the year’s big political issues such as transgender bathroom rights, Barack Obama’s final year in office and (of course) Donald Trump.
"I think everybody should use whatever bathroom they want to use," Handler said. "I use the men's room as often as possible because I think women are filthy."
You can listen to Recode Decode in the audio player above, or subscribe on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher.
If you like this show, you should also sample our other podcasts:
- Recode Media with Peter Kafka features no-nonsense conversations with the smartest and most interesting people in the media world, with new episodes every Thursday. Use these links to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher.
- Too Embarrassed to Ask, hosted by Kara Swisher and The Verge's Lauren Goode, answers the tech questions sent in by our readers and listeners. You can hear new episodes every Friday on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher.
- And Recode Replay has all the audio from our live events, including the Code Conference, Code Media and the Code Commerce Series. We've posted audio of every single interview at the 2016 Code Conference, so subscribe today on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher.
If you like what we’re doing, please write a review on iTunes — and if you don’t, just tweet-strafe Kara. Tune in next Monday for another episode of Recode Decode!
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
