Comedian and bestselling author Chelsea Handler opens up about losing her oldest brother at nine, using humor and fantasy to survive grief, and the third-grade teacher whose compassion stayed with her for decades.
Chelsea Handler is known for turning uncomfortable truths into comedy, but in a deeply personal appearance on The Person Who Believed in Me with David Begnaud, she revisits a childhood tragedy that shaped the person—and performer—she would eventually become.
Handler was just nine years old when her oldest brother, Chet, died in a hiking accident on July 10. When she returned to school that fall, she found herself surrounded by classmates and neighbors repeatedly asking if she was okay. She hated the attention and, even more, the pity that came with it.
So she created another story.
Handler began telling classmates that she had been cast in a movie with Goldie Hawn. Soon, kids were asking for her autograph, and rather than retreat from the lie, Handler committed to it. She even wrote Hawn asking for an autographed photograph—and remarkably, the Hollywood star sent one.
Eventually, reality caught up with the fantasy. There was no movie, and Handler recalls that the humiliation of being exposed felt even worse than the sympathy she had been desperately trying to avoid.
Watching everything unfold was her third-grade teacher, Carol Schectman.
Schectman recognized something deeper happening behind Handler’s behavior. The Handler family had lost its firstborn, leaving each member to process the tragedy in their own way, while the youngest of six children was quietly trying to make sense of a world that suddenly felt very different.
Schectman would occasionally stop by the Handler home on an ordinary weeknight without an obvious reason. Only decades later did Handler understand what her teacher had been doing: checking on the family and making sure someone was paying attention to the little girl who had learned to hide her pain behind stories.
More importantly, Schectman would pull Handler aside and remind her that she was special—even if she never explained exactly why.
During her conversation with David Begnaud, Handler shares intimate memories of Chet, including how he would carry her up the driveway while pretending not to realize she was faking sleep and open her bedroom window during the winter because he knew how much she loved the cold.
She also reflects on the complicated aftermath of his death. Handler discusses her father’s response to the tragedy, including his decision to sue the friends who had been hiking with Chet. From the perspective of a nine-year-old girl, Handler felt as though she hadn’t simply lost her brother—she had lost her father, too.
It wasn’t until Handler entered therapy at age 40 that she began understanding the emotions she’d carried since childhood. What she had experienced at nine wasn’t simply grief. To her, it had felt like betrayal. Her brother had told her he was coming back.
And he never did.
At the center of the episode, however, is the extraordinary impact one person can have simply by noticing a child who needs to be seen.
For nearly 30 years, Handler believed she might never have the opportunity to properly thank Schectman for being that person. Then, after Handler briefly mentioned her former teacher on her Netflix series, the two were able to reconnect.
That unexpected reunion gave them eight more years together.
On The Person Who Believed in Me, Chelsea Handler’s story becomes more than a reflection on grief. It’s a testament to the lasting power of teachers, mentors, and everyday people who recognize something in us before we have the ability to recognize it ourselves.
Through an emotional and revealing conversation with David Begnaud, Handler looks back at the little girl who invented a Hollywood movie to escape being pitied—and the teacher who understood that behind the outrageous story was simply a child searching for a way to survive something she didn’t yet know how to name.
The Person Who Believed in Me with David Begnaud featuring Chelsea Handler is available to watch and stream now.
