Chelsea Handler Says She Thought the Sun and Moon Were the Same Until She Was 40

Chelsea Handler has a funny confession: She didn't realize until she was 40 that the sun and the moon were not the same thing.

Handler stopped by “The Tonight Show” on Jan. 12 to talk about her most recent comedy special, “Revolution,” which premiered Dec. 27 on Netflix. During the interview, Handler talked to host Jimmy Fallon about some of the jabs she made at herself during the special, including her longtime confusion about some common astronomy knowledge.

“I’m very outspoken about not wanting to be a parent because I don’t think I have the skills,” she said. “I’m not equipped with what it takes to answer all of those questions to children because they don’t just ask you once…I have enough nieces and nephews to know that I don’t have the tolerance for that kind of line of questioning about things that I really don’t even know the answers to."

The 47-year-old continued, adding, "And at a certain age, when you don’t know the answers to questions, it’s too embarrassing to ask questions — you just have to pretend you know.”

Handler gave an example of one of those scenarios, telling Fallon that until she was 40, she didn’t know that the sun and moon were two separate entities.

Handler, who shared the anecdote in her comedy special, recalled the moment from seven years prior when she learned there was a difference.

She explained that she found out the truth while on a safari during a trip to Africa with her sister, Simone Handler-Hutchinson.

“My older sister Simone looked up at the sky and she said, ‘Chelsea, Chelsea look up. It’s not often that you get to see the sun and the moon at the same time,’” Handler recalled. “And I go ‘Wait, but they’re always together’ and as soon as I said that, she turned around. She goes ‘What did you say?’ And I was like, ‘Oh shut up, shut up.’ I knew what I said was wrong."

Handler said she “tried to gloss over it” and backtrack her statement, but her sister wouldn’t drop it.

"She said, ‘No, I need you to tell me what you think is happening between the sun and the moon,'" the former “Chelsea Lately” host recounted to Fallon.

“I was like, ‘Honestly, I just assumed when the sun went down, it popped back up as the moon,’” Handler added. “I’m like, 'Is that not what’s happening?’”

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