Comedian Chelsea Handler said she wanted to “call” former first lady Melania Trump a “prostitute” during her recent hosting gig on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” but wasn’t allowed to for fear of the network being sued.
The 47-year-old comedian talked about her recent stint as a host of the ABC late-night show and said she was surprised by how much freedom she had to say what she wanted during her hosting gig. However, she admitted she did get some pushback when she wanted to call Melania a “prostitute.”
“We were going to call her a prostitute and then they said, ‘No, she’s sued people for calling her a prostitute,’” Handler told Variety magazine in a recent article.
“I’m like, ‘But technically she is a prostitute, so why can’t we say that?’” she added.
Handler said she had “never wanted to be on network television because they would never let me do my thing,” but was basically able to do “whatever” she wanted.
“But I have to say, this week on ‘Jimmy Kimmel,’ I did basically whatever I wanted and it was received so well,” the performer shared. “The amount of attention and messages I’ve gotten, it really feels like coming home.”
During the show last week, the “Chelsea Lately” star said that during the ongoing January 6 Committee hearings, “we also got a glimpse at Melania’s awfulness.” The entire bit can be seen here.
The “This Means War” star was also later asked in the Variety interview about comments she previously made about the former first lady during an interview she gave in 2017 at Sundance Film Festival, as The Daily Wire previously reported. At the time, the former talk show host was asked if she would ever want to interview Melania, to which Handler replied that the former first lady “can barely speak English.”
The interviewer noted how the comments got a lot of “backlash, but honestly, that’s one of the more tame things you’ve said in recent years.”
“Yes. And well, I also think Melania has proven herself to deserve that kind of retribution,” the former talk show host replied.