Chelsea Handler Playboy reveal: From Angelina Jolie bashing to the right to choose

Chelsea Handler isn't coy about revealing candid details about her private life. The American talk-show host never holds back in terms of TMI, most recently confessing to having two abortions when she was 16 in a candid essay for Playboy magazine.

The 41-year-old – who fronted the late-night chat show Chelsea Lately from 2007-2014 – divulged intimate details of her teenage years in the eye-opening essay for the publication's Freedom issue, which featured a "very bad stage" in her life.

Handler recounts loathing her parents, having unprotected sex with her boyfriend and undergoing two abortions through Planned Parenthood, claiming she wouldn't be where she is today if she hadn't had the right to choose.

But this isn't the first time Handler has aired her laundry in public, and that's why the comedian is so popular. The star has openly spoken about her ephemeral relationship with rapper 50 Cent in 2010, and the pair are still friends. She recently claimed to US Weekly: "All my cars are chocolate brown. 50 Cent got me on that. I bought a Havana Chocolate Bentley when we dated."

She also elaborated on what she eschews in men, adding: "I've bailed on hook-ups at the last minute based on a guy's personality or body or small penis or weird walk." And when it comes to social media, she is known to post semi-nude selfies, share her true political beliefs and be her outright self.

Handler has not shied away from slamming fellow celebrities either, branding Angelina Jolie a "homewrecker" in 2010. She said: "She doesn't strike me as someone I would have a close friendship with. You just know as a woman, when you see another woman, if that's a woman you can trust."

The talk show host recently cited Justin Bieber as her worst interview ever, claiming that the Sorry singer made her feel like "like a child molester" as the then teen would regularly flirt while being interviewed.

Despite it being at the expense of her privacy, and the subsequent Twitter trolls' wrath, Handler penned the Playboy essay – which included the abortion revelations – with awareness in mind. Reaching out to impressionable teenage girls, she recalls a time when she initially wanted to keep the child before being swayed.

She wrote: "Getting an abortion wasn't the first idea that popped into my unripened brain. I was going through a very bad stage in my life.

"I hated my parents and I was having unprotected sex with my boyfriend, who was not someone I should've been having sex with in the first place, never mind unprotected sex.

"I wasn't really playing with a full deck of cards, and when I got pregnant I just thought, 'Why not? I can have a baby. Maybe I'll have twins and give them rhyming names!'" she added.

The host believes terminating both pregnancies was the right decision following her parents' advice. She went on: "Of course, the idea that I would have a child and raise it by myself at that age, when I couldn't even find my way home at night, was ridiculous.

"My parents recognised that, so they acted like parents for one of the very first times in my life and took me to Planned Parenthood. I felt parented, ironically, while I was getting an abortion. And when it was over, I was relieved in every possible way," she continued.

The Netflix star – named one of Time's 100 Most Influential people in 2012 – admitted how she and her boyfriend decided to "scrape together" funds for another abortion after getting pregnant twice in the same year.

She explained: "I had to scrape together the $230 (£175) to pay Planned Parenthood, but it was a safe abortion.

Discussing how the controversial issue is a sign of the times, she compared the acceptance of abortion with that of transgender rights.

She added: "We're too far ahead of the game. Once you go forward in history, you don't go backward. We've already made the decision, and now we're moving on to transgender rights. And it's a wrap on men deciding what women can do with their bodies."