Chelsea Handler Says She Felt 'Broken' After Her Brother's Death at 22: He Was 'My Protector'

Chelsea Handler is back with a new book — and she’s digging deeper than ever before.

The comedian and New York Times bestselling author’s first memoir, Life Will Be the Death of Me: ... and you too!, is out now. In it, she opens up about how she coped after becoming enraged by the election of Donald Trump as president and details the impact of her brother’s death when she was 9 years old.

Handler’s brother Chet, the eldest of six kids, fell off a cliff and died during a 1984 hiking trip in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Speaking to USA Today, Handler, 44, said she was recently forced to come to terms with the loss.

“I started coming home and writing down the stuff that Dan, my doctor, was telling me about (how) I was emotionally attached to this 9-year-old girl and that was the reason I had become the way I’d become,” Handler said. “Because I’m so resilient and I want to be so strong and I wrote it because I thought, ‘Wow, if I’m going through this, then how many other haven’t dealt with their pain?’ “

Handler said her brother served as “kind of my protector, kind of a father figure, a big brother, a crush, your first boyfriend.”

“You just feel broken,” she said of how her family reacted to Chet’s passing, adding that her father was “a wreck” at the time.

“I didn’t like seeing my father weak. I’d already lost my brother; I couldn’t lose my dad too, and I did. My dad never recovered,” she said. “I dealt with it by just, if anybody talked about Chet or mentioned him, I’d just leave the room. I’d get on my bike, and I’d ride my bike for hours around the neighborhood. I could cry on my bike, but I wouldn’t let anyone see me cry in person.”

In an interview about the book with Maria Shriver on Today, Handler said that Chet’s death has affected her perspective on love.

“I can’t be in a relationship because I have such a deep injury that I have never addressed,” she said. “There’s no shortcut through grief. You can’t go around it. You can’t ignore it. You have to go through it.”

Handler has honored her brother on the anniversary of his death over the years, discussing what she learned from the loss in 2017.

“33 years ago this month my brother Chet died. He was 22, and the oldest of 6 kids,” she captioned a photo of him on Instagram. “We were never 6 again. Only 5. The number was never the right number again.”

“But, because of that day, I learned how to live and love and laugh and to: Show up, Stand up, Love up. Argue, Fight, Make up, Show up again. Go to bat for people. Tell them you love them. Defend your friends. Stand up for yourself. Give away the things you have in excess. Give away the things you love the most,” she continued. “This is the only chance we get. Make it count. Live a little.”

In 2016, Handler spoke about Chet’s death to PEOPLE, admitting that “seeing your parents fall apart is really rough.”

“I wouldn’t wish it on anybody,” she said. “As hard as it was for me or for my brothers or sisters — [how did it feel] for my parents to have your own child in danger in that way? And then you can’t protect them and you couldn’t save them?”

“In hindsight it really kept us as a tight-knit group, because it was so tragic and awful,” she continued. “Ultimately, it was kind of a beautiful gift because we all value each other so much.”