2025 marked Chelsea Handler hosting the Critics Choice Award and this year also she took her signature style of sharp humor on stage. Unfortunately, Melania Trump had to bear the burn of one of her jokes as she said that this year has given us great biopics, we also have the film Anora, which is about Melania Trump.
For those uninitiated, Anora is about “a young escort from Brooklyn [who] meets and impulsively marries the son of a Russian oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairy tale is threatened as his parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled.”
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While the joke sounded rather offensive, Handler made it specifically because Melania is a lot younger than Trump and also because of Trump’s favorable comments about Putin, showing the good relationship they have with Russia.
Funny or not, social media users reacted to it quickly and most of them lashed at Handler for making such insensitive jokes. One user mentioned, “Chelsea should really find better ways to get attention than bashing Melania. So weak.”
Another one said, “Melania would never be as iconic as anora.” A third user added, “Girl ur not funny.”
However, Handler’s comments are not really surprising because she has always been one with a brash sense of humor and also regularly called out celebrities on her show Chelsea Lately (2007-2014).
Though her show has ended, she keeps bringing her commentary laced with witty and sharp humor to anywhere she performs, be it as a host or a stand up comedian. Handler has also been critical of Melania Trump in the past.
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In an episode of Watch What Happens Live, where she comes as a guest, Handler talks about Ivanka and Melania Trump, saying, “I just want to shake them, violently, is what I want to do. I want to shake some sense into them.”
In 2022 when she hosted Jimmy Kimmel Live, she listed “all of the terrible things Melania has said yes to over the years” and included Melania’s jacket that said ‘I Really Don’t Care, Do You?’, and her allegedly plagiarising Michelle Obama’s speech among other things.
Besides the Trumps, Handler had also called out the Kardashians when she blamed Kim Kardashian for turning the presidential election into “a reality show.” She had blamed them for Trump’s election, saying, “I blame the Kardashians, personally; the beginning of the end was the Kardashians. The way these people have blown up and don’t go away — it’s surreal.”
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As reported by Variety, Handler was extremely devastated by Trump being elected in America and had wanted to move to Spain. However, that changed when her millennial staff members told her, ‘You’re our only outlet. You’re our mouthpiece.’ Words like these are bound to motivate anyone and they sure did motivate Handler who chose to stay back and continue to do what she was doing.
This year’s Critics Choice Award was held at Santa Monica’s Barker Hangar after being postponed twice for the unexpected and devastating LA fires. Handler addressed this disaster in her speech and also encouraged the attendees to donate to the relief funds through a QR code that was shown during the broadcast.
