Chelsea Handler opened up in a recent interview about why her relationship with fellow standup comedian and actor Jo Koy ended over the summer.
Before committing to a relationship, the two comedians had been longtime friends for years, but their romance only lasted for less than a year before the two called it quits. Handler reflected on the relationship during an episode of “Now What?” published this week with host Brooke Shields.
“I really believed that this was my guy. I thought, ‘Oh my God, I won.’ Like I got everything. I have my career, I have respect, I have my family, I have so many friends, I have all of these things. And then I thought this was gonna be the person I spend my life with,” Handler said, noting that she even considered the possibility of marriage.
“I’m not that hard up to get married, but I was open to the idea of it, and we definitely discussed it at length because it was important to him,” she added. “And then, towards the end of the relationship, it just became clear that this was not my person.”
Chelsea Handler and Joy Koy dated for less than a year.
(Kevork Djansezian)
“There were just some behaviors that we couldn’t agree on… It felt to me like I would have to abandon myself, which maybe I would have been OK to do if I were 20 or 25, but I wasn’t willing to do that. No matter how much I loved this person — and I loved him so much — I was not going to abandon myself,” Handler continued.
The couple first went public with their relationship in September 2021 after being mutual friends for two decades. Handler and Koy announced their split via Instagram on July 18. Koy was a regular guest on the comedian’s now-canceled late-night show “Chelsea Lately.”
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She concluded, “I was in a lot of pain, but it was unacceptable. I said this can’t happen. Our relationship just devolved, and we both could not agree on a situation or several situations, and I thought therapy could help — it did not — and I exhausted any avenue I could think of, and then I just realized this is futile.”
