Chelsea Handler Says Netflix Series Will Not Be a Nightly Talk Show

TCA 2015: Comic declines to discuss “Chelsea Lately” exit, saying, “I don’t think anyone else needs to hear me bitch about E!”

Chelsea Handler’s upcoming Netflix series will not mirror the format of her former E! show “Chelsea Lately,” the comic revealed Tuesday at the Television Critics Association summer press tour in Beverly Hills.

“I’m not looking to do a nightly talk show again,” Handler said. “That was never my intent. I want to do another show that will be on several times a week or a few times a week.”

Handler said that work on the new series will begin in 2016, after post-production finishes on her upcoming documentaries “Chelsea Does Marriage,” “Chelsea Does Racism,” “Chelsea Does Silicon Valley” and “Chelsea Does Drugs.”

But Handler did indicate that the show will have a news peg and break from Netflix’s strategy of releasing an entire season’s worth of episodes of a show simultaneously. “We have to get it down to a place where we can shoot something and have it air 48 hours after.”

Handler who was outspoken last year about her desire to depart E!, where she served as host of the daily late-night show “Chelsea Lately” for seven years, refrained from taking shots at her former network from the TCA stage.

“I don’t think anyone else needs to hear me bitch about E!” she said.

She did however, without drawing a direct connection to E!, say that working at Netflix “is the difference between playing with, like, kids on a playground and being in a really well respected college.”

In the lead-up to her departure from E! last year, Handler told radio host Howard Stern that the network was “a sad, sad place to live.” She also, at the time that CBS was searching for a successor to Craig Ferguson as host of “The Late Late Show,” posted on Instagram a photo of herself holding paperwork bearing the CBS logo. The photo prompted CBS to issue a statement denying that it had held discussions with Handler over the “Late Late Show” post, which eventually went to James Corden.

On Tuesday, Handler denied having sought any of the late-night broadcast hosting jobs that opened up in the last two years.

“I was not interested,” she said. “I was approached about network jobs. I was not interested.”

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