Chelsea Devantez

Chelsea Devantez is a TV writer, comedian, and filmmaker, and host the new podcast, Celebrity Book Club, which recaps, celebrates, and deep dives on a different celebrity memoir with a special guest every week. Follow her on Twitter here, Instagram here.

Explain how this idea went from IG to a podcast.
Celebrity memoirs have been my favorite book genre since I was a teenager, which is I guess what happens when you grow up in places where your nearest bookstore is a Walmart. So of course I had Jessica Simpson’s book on pre-order and I took it with me on a girls trip back in February. I was drunk in a hot tub reading this book and just so blown away by all Jessica was giving us in these pages, that I started recapping it on my Instagram because I felt that the people just had to know! I received so many messages from both men and women telling me they were going to buy the book from reading about it in my story. And I was like oh man, well if you like that book you gotta hear about some of my other favorite memoirs! This coincided with the pandemic happening, so we were all at home in a very fearful and scary time, and these are my feel good books -- they are full of enough depth to speak to me, but glitzy enough to be a little break from the world. So I was recapping these books on my IG and it was the dms from friends and strangers saying it should be a podcast that inspired me to put together a pitch in March and it was sold pretty immediately to Midroll/Stitcher in April. It took a lot of time to launch as we waded through contracts and premiere date availabilities, so in the meantime I did these IG lives and kept running it on my instagram and it’s become this wild little digital book club. As cheesy as it is, it’s been amazing to find myself a part of a community in a time where most communities have been lost. 

What's your intention with the show? 
My first intention is just to share all the incredible treasures inside these books -- each one offers something immense and entertaining. I also hope to share how powerful it is when a woman tells her own story. I don’t do biographies, I only cover memoirs; what I care about is how this woman got through her life and the meaning she’s taken from it. Since all the authors are celebrities, they are all powerful women in some way, and to become a powerful woman in our society you go through some crazy shit. Yet we learn about these women through the lens of our media, which is often some blogger being like “she’s an ugly slut, now!,” so learning about these women from their perspective is the side of the story we’ve been missing. These are complex women, and their stories are what I crave: they are competitive, they go through failures, make enemies, get fired, go through heartache, lean on great friends, fall in love again, and pick themselves back up and create art and push on -- it’s more fulling storytelling than most TV shows with a “strong female lead.” 

How do you describe the show to people? How do you get them to understand that this isn't just a silly, fluffy show and that it's saying something huge about celebrities and our culture and people in general?
To me, these books are the greatest self-help books of all time. Making yourself better is so fucking tedious, but if you can read about how to deal with the shit in your life through Demi Moore losing herself in a relationship with Ashton, or Mariah Carey having to excommunicate her family, or how Mel B got out of an abusive relationship, it’s a lot more fun. But also, we’re not just reading about what it meant for Jessica Simpson to be eviscerated for her weight gain, because that shit happened to us, too! We all saw those magazines on the newsstands and learned the lesson that you lose all value in life if you gain weight. That thesis pervaded our entire lives, and now we’ve gotta go back in time and break that shit. Reading these books helps us all undo and understand that cultural damage, and also find some good laughs in it because it’s insane that we destroyed a woman’s life for wearing unflattering jeans. 

Does the show exist so that people go on to read these books? Or is listening to an episode skipping the reading part?
You definitely don’t have to read the book! Each episode recaps the book and shares all the great gems, tidbits, and themes inside the book, so you can enjoy it without ever reading a single memoir. But if a certain book speaks to you, you can read it before or after listening to the episode and it’ll add even more to your read.

What has making the show taught you about people, particularly celebrities and men?
They hate you if you’re hot, they hate you if you’re ugly; they hate you if you’re smart, but also if you’re dumb; they hate you if you try hard, and if you don’t try hard enough; they hate you if you’re too girly and they hate you if you’re too masculine. You’re hated no matter what you do -- so fuck ‘em all, just be kind, but stop being concerned with being liked by everyone, because for womxn, it’s impossible. 

Have you learned anything about yourself making the show?
This will sound nuts from someone actively hosting a podcast, but I have a hard time opening up and talking about myself. I’ve been a working comedian and writer for the past decade, but everything I create is a polished product and not personally about me. So just riffing and being messy and vulnerable about personal things, has been something I struggle with. But sharing these memoirs with others have made me strong enough to feel like I can share about my life, too, and face my own demons. I mean, I cried at the end of episode 2 because I related to Demi Moore and all her dad shit, and it’s a goddamn comedy podcast! 

What’s something listeners don’t understand about podcasts and what goes into making them?
How much work the producers do and how great producers can make or break a podcast. I’m so lucky to work with Daisy Rosario, Brandon Nix and Corrine Wallace -- from giving creative direction, to saving lost audio, or saving an episode with editing, to being present on the zoom and making encouraging faces to help lead us in the most entertaining direction -- so much goes into making this thing happen. 

Why are you the perfect host for this show? 
Probably because I’m a very fast reader, ha! I also genuinely love these books. Even though I’m a comedian, it never occurred to me to approach this podcast by making fun of them. Making fun of something is always the easier laugh in comedy, and making fun of celebrities is low hanging fruit, but on top of that, I detest when people who have not created something sizable themselves, think they should critique others who did have the balls and the work ethic to go for it. You have to be really brave to be a creative and you have to throw away all of life’s comforts to pursue these dreams, and I’d rather learn from these women than shit on them.

Were any podcasts inspiration for this show? I often think you give the “You're Wrong About treatment” to your subjects.
What a compliment, thank you! Funnily enough I only started listening to You’re Wrong about after I already launched the podcast and my first guest and bestie, Ashley, told me about how they also covered Jessica’s book, and now I’m a big fan of theirs. The format was really formed through the book recaps on IG -- they crystalized what types of things were most important to both me and the audience. But also each book is so different that each episode really is its own entity -- different books require different coverage. Some episodes are more comedic, and some are more serious, based on what’s inside the book.

If you were going to create another podcast, don’t worry about the logistics or whether or not anyone would like it, what would it be?
You know, I’m not sure I would do another one! Somehow I am the only comedian in the world who was not looking to have a podcast. This one came about so organically and is a combination of all the things I love: powerful women, romance, female friendships and enemies, trauma, gossip, the entertainment business, empowerment, and how to fucking triumph! We also get into things like weight, sexual assault, discrimination, and topics that we face all the time in life but are really heavy, and I get to talk about them through the lens of this celebrity’s life and with comedy. It’s really my dream podcast, I don’t know if it can be topped!

Women in podcasting are constantly being criticized for their voices. What is your relationship with yours? How would you describe your voice?
People critique women’s voices because they literally aren’t used to hearing from us.  If women had 50 percent of the voice in our media and culture for the last 100 years, higher voices or whatever would not sound off to people. More female voices out there are the only thing that will normalize it. I have not had any critiques on my voice, but only when we have full equality, will I be open to criticisms, because before that happens how am I to know what’s legit critique and what’s just someone’s internalized sexism! You hear that people -- I will not be taking any vocal notes until the patriarchy falls! (Okay, that said, I talk very very fast and am always working on slowing down.) 

Should podcasters read their Apple Podcast reviews?
I hope so...because I do! The little community that’s built itself around the podcast has been really smart, cool people and I like reading their feedback. Though I do have a singular, one star review, and I love that one the most, because I know it’s my bitch ass nemesis and they are lurkin’!

What shows do you love?
My Brother’s Sneaker, Bitch Sesh, Scam Goddess, Reading Glasses, Hills I’d Die On, How Did This Get Made?, Ethnically Ambiguous, Code Switch, Add To Cart, and sigh...Brene Brown’s podcast. 

Thanks, Mark!