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Chelsea Handler Asked Her Therapist If She Was a Narcissist, Said It Was Her ‘Biggest Fear’

The comic said she learned empathy in therapy, saying, "I was so paranoid that I was this bad person" during an appearance on "The Jamie Kern Lima" podcast

Cara Lynn Shultz

Tue, February 18, 2026 at 1:35 p.m. PST·3 min read

Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty

Chelsea Handler attends the Critics Choice Awards in Santa Monica, Calif., in 2026.

Chelsea Handler worried she didn’t have empathy — and specifically, the ability to put herself in someone else’s shoes — which led her to ask her therapist if she was a narcissist.

“I had sympathy and I had generosity, but they're not the same thing,” Handler explained during a Feb. 18 appearance on The Jamie Kern Lima Show, saying she learned to develop empathy in therapy.

“Apparently I didn't have empathy for a long time,” said Handler, who turns 50 on Feb. 25. When Lima asked the comic, “Can you learn empathy?” she replied with a resounding, “Yes, you can. You can totally learn empathy. That's the greatest update ever.”

Courtesy of The Jamie Kern Lima Show

Chelsea Handler appears on the Feb. 18 episode of "The Jamie Kern Lima Show."

Related: Chelsea Handler Is Ready to Spill 'Lots of Tea' in New Netflix Comedy Special The Feeling (Exclusive)

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Handler continued: “I wasn't thinking about what it would be like to be a different person. I would only go, ‘Oh, that person's in trouble. Let me help them.’ I never thought, ‘What is it like to be them? What is it like to be that person?’ “

“So, the good news is you can gain empathy because it's just like turning a light on that's not on,” Handler explained, adding that she also confronted her “biggest fear” when she entered therapy.

“The biggest fear I had about entering into therapy when I did was that I was a narcissist. I asked my therapist — this guy, Dan Siegel, who's incredible and just changed my life forever — I said, ‘Am I a narcissist? Like, I need you to really be honest with me.’ ”

“He was like, ‘Typically narcissists aren't looking for feedback,’” she said, laughing.

“I was like, ‘Oh yeah! Hallelujah!’” Handler said. “I was so paranoid that I was this bad person, and I was never a bad person. I have been angry, and I've been confused, and I've been hurt, but I've not ever been a bad person.”

Amy Sussman/Getty

Chelsea Handler attends the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in 2024.

Related: Chelsea Handler Says She's 'More Confident' as She Approaches 50: 'There's a Sexual Awakening That Happens'

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According to the Mayo Clinic, narcissism is a mental health condition where someone has an “unreasonably high sense of their own importance” and seeks out attention and admiration — even though they are often upset by “the slightest criticism,” and they lack the ability to care about others’ feelings.

Handler shared that since therapy, “Thinking about walking in another person's shoes is now something that happens to me daily, regularly, all day long. I think, ‘Oh, that person, what they must be going through,’ or ‘Is that person okay?’ ”

“I think so many people can get confused in thinking that we're bad because we have negative thoughts or we have human thoughts. Your humanity is going to create dark thoughts. We all have a shadow self. We have all have a self that's not our best self, that is always like trying to get us to lower our vibe — but we're innately good… That was a relief to find out all of that information ‘cause I want to be good.”

“I want to be a good person and I want to help other people be good women.”

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