Chelsea Handler Plots New TV Show, But Not on Netflix

Comedian Chelsea Handler is working on a new television project, but it will not be for Netflix. She will star in a series adaptation of her best-selling memoir Life Will Be the Death of Me... and You Too! for NBCUniversal's Peacock streaming platform. It represents a return to NBCUniversal for Handler, since its E! Network was the home of her hit late-night show Chelsea Lately.

Just a few months after Live Will Be the Death of Me was published in 2019, multiple studios bid on a potential adaptation of the book. In September 2019, Universal Television came out on top, Deadline reported at the time. Now, over two years later, Deadline reports that the project will be available on Peacock. Handler will star in and executive produce the show. Liz Tuccillo, who worked on Sex and the City and Divorce, will write and executive produce. Other executive producers include Sue Naegle and Megan Ellison of Annapurna Pictures; Chelsea Handler Productions' Molly Burke, and Jackie Sosa.

At the start of the show, Handler finds herself in a crisis. She signs up for therapy to become a nicer person, but she ends up overcorrecting and making mistakes on her journey to better herself. In the half-hour single-camera series, Handler will also learn to deal with childhood trauma to help her move on in life.

Handler has two other comedies in the works. In 2020, she sold Blair, a series created by and based on the comic strip by Mo Welch, to HBO Max. She also sold Charles Morris' Wiped Out to Peacock. Wiped Hour is the story of a narcissistic woman who is suddenly erased from everyone's memory, so she teams up with a conspiracy theory in an attempt to rebuild the life no one remembers she had.

Handler is best known for her hit late-night series Chelsea Lately, which aired from 2007 to 2014. After the show ended, she moved to Netflix, where she hosted the 2016-2017 talk show Chelsea. She also had two documentary series for the streamer, Chelsea Does (2016) and Hello, Privilege. It's Me, Chelsea (2019). In 2020, she released the special Chelsea Handler: Evolution on HBO Max. Handler is also scheduled to start a new standup tour on Feb. 2 in Seattle. She also hosts a podcast, Dear Chelsea. 

In December, Handler and her boyfriend, comedian Jo Koy, told The Hollywood Reporter they were planning a joint tour and a joint special in the future. They also teased the creation of a new production company to help those underrepresented in the entertainment industry, or, as Handler said, "people who remain marginalized no matter what this industry talks about or how egalitarian it professes to be."