Chelsea Handler takes SXSW 2023 stage to talk abortion, politics and eating soup topless

Wearing a gold “Hands Off Our Bodies” pin, comedian and frequent TV host Chelsea Handler brought her high-energy humor to a packed March 10 South by Southwest featured session at the Austin Convention Center.

Handler was interviewed by former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who nearly matched Handler’s high-speed patter. Psaki helped keep the session quick and lively, even when promoting her new MSNBC show and announcing its first guests.

(They will be, incidentally, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and New York City Mayor Eric Adams.)

The panel started with Psaki asking Handler whether she thought twice about coming to SXSW given the state’s anti-abortion policies. “I thought about wearing two pins,” Handler quipped. Saying she came to be a voice for others, Handler suggested state leaders “leave us alone and leave our bodies alone.”

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Handler said that the abortion debate has been a huge waste of time, energy and resource that could be used to combat homelessness and lack of health care for women. She’s talked publicly about her own past abortions and said she’ll continue to be vocal about her support for abortion rights.

Handler said she’s tired of being asked when she’ll get married and have babies: “I’m not fit to be a parent, I know that about myself. … Children don’t respect me, and the feeling is mutual.”

Psaki asked questions about the state of comedy (Handler said it’s gotten friendlier and less ugly in its competitiveness for younger comics), recent revelations about Tucker Carlson and Fox News (“It was almost like finding out you hate somebody a little less”) and what she’s doing next.

Handler said that she’ll be back on a comedy tour soon, she's working on another book and hinted that she will probably be hosting another TV show before too long after a recent guest stint on “The Daily Show.”

Not everything in the panel was about politics or comedy, especially when Psaki borrowed a segment from her new show to ask a lot of random questions. A question about what’s in Handler’s fridge (lots of beverages) led to a hilarious story about how hot liquids like soup make Handler sweat; as a child, she always ate soup topless.

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It’s a testament to Handler’s skill as a funny talker that she spun this into a solid bit that concluded with her family trying to hide her eating soup without a shirt on in a car. Handler’s vulnerability and her ability to reveal surprising parts of herself through her humor made her the perfect featured speaker for the conference, which can always benefit from some professional levity.

For instance, she talked about her crush on Mitt Romney, whom she said she likes for his principled political stances. But it could go away, like her attraction did for Robert Mueller when his investigation failed to bring about former President Donald Trump's expulsion from office.

“I broke up with Robert Mueller,” Handler joked.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Chelsea Handler at SXSW talks Mitt Romney crush, abortion rights, more