Chelsea Handler is relieved her planned seduction of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo didn’t pan out.
According to Page Six, the 49-year-old comedian detailed in her upcoming memoir how she became captivated by Cuomo, 67, while watching his daily briefings at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the time, Handler publicly revealed her crush on the politician. In her forthcoming book, ‘I’ll Have What She’s Having,’ she wrote that the two began exchanging flirty texts until Cuomo abruptly ghosted her after agreeing to a date in New York.
In a recent interview with Page Six, Handler said she ‘dodged a bullet’ when Cuomo stopped contacting her.
‘My life is filled with dodging bullets,’ the former ‘Chelsea Lately’ host told the outlet, citing her unfulfilled romance with Cuomo as ‘just one example.’
In 2021, several women accused Cuomo of sexual harassment, which contributed to his resignation. Cuomo has denied all the allegations made against him.
In 2020, Handler gushed about her crush on Cuomo several times. She wrote of her adoration for Cuomo on social media, penned a ‘love letter’ for Vogue titled ‘Dear Andrew Cuomo, I Want To Be Your First Lady’ and spoke of her sexual attraction to the former governor and her preference for older men during her HBO comedy special ‘Evolution.’
While appearing on ‘The View’ via Zoom in October 2020, Handler expressed her desire for Cuomo.
‘First of all, he’s like a big giant. He came in like the Incredible Hulk,’ she told the hosts. ‘We needed somebody to come on the scene. We were so dehydrated for real leadership that when he came on the scene looking like this big Italian hunk.
‘He was like, ‘Wear a mask.’ I was like, ‘I’ll wear a mask, I’ll put a mask on every part of my body. I wanna flatten your curve, and you can flatten my curve, and then we can both apex together.’
However, she explained she asked Cuomo out on a date, but he never followed up. With Cuomo due to appear on ‘The View’ later that week, Handler asked the hosts to ask him about ghosting her.
‘I do want you to follow up on something with him for me, ladies, if you wouldn’t mind,’ she said. ‘I did have a conversation with Cuomo a few months ago, and I did ask him out on a date. And he did say yes, and then I never heard from him.’
‘My life is filled with dodging bullets.’
During his appearance on ‘The View,’ Cuomo responded to Handler’s crush on him.
‘I’ve had a lot of conversations about flattening the curve, but never quite that way,’ Cuomo said with a laugh. ‘I’m a big fan of Chelsea, and she is great. We have fun.
‘But, on my dating life, you know, I am only dating, at this point, in-state residents. I’m dating New York residents. So, if Chelsea changes her residence, then maybe we can work it out.’
According to Page Six, Handler wrote in her memoir that Cuomo had called her from an unknown number and left her a long voicemail three days after her appearance on ‘The View.’
‘I’m going to f— the governor!’ Handler recalled exclaiming to a friend at the time.
Handler wrote that she intended for the sexual liaison with Cuomo to take place during an upcoming trip to New York.
However, she noted that ‘the big hiccup here was that Mr. Cuomo stopped responding to my texts as soon as I arrived on the East Coast.’
Undeterred by Cuomo’s ghosting, Handler recalled that she continued texting him photos of herself, including images in which she was ‘swimming topless while wearing a face mask’ and ‘smoking a joint topless.’
Looking back, Handler believes she took the wrong approach while pursuing Cuomo.
‘If I hadn’t been so forward and declared what I was looking for, I could have ended up in bed with him,’ she wrote. ‘It seemed he preferred touching women who weren’t interested in him, rather than touching women who were.’