Comedian Matt Rife Gets Backlash for Domestic Abuse Joke
Matt Rife, the 28-year-old stand-up comic who started out as a TikTok sensation, is making headlines with his Netflix special, “Natural Selection.” But it isn’t because it went to the No. 2 spot on the streaming service’s global top 10 list, with 7.4 million views in its debut week. But more because of backlash coming from jokes about domestic violence and abuse.
In the special, which Vulture dismissed as “half uninspiring dick jokes, half screed against the injustice of online haters, and entirely underwhelming,” Rife opens with a story about him and his friend visiting a “ratchet” restaurant in Baltimore and being served by a waitress with a black eye.
“I’ve only been to Baltimore one time. I ate lunch there, and the hostess, who seats you at the restaurant, had a black eye. A full black eye,” Rife narrated. “It wasn’t like, ‘What happened?’ It was pretty obvious what happened. We couldn’t get over the fact that like, this is the face of the company? This is who you have greeting people?”
“And my boy who I was with was like, ‘Yeah, I feel bad for her, man. I feel like they should put her in the kitchen or something where nobody has to see her face, ya know?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, but I feel like if she could cook, she wouldn’t have that black eye,’” Rife said, to which the audience responded with laughter.
Rife then said, “Testing the waters, seeing if y’all are gonna be fun or not. I figure we start the show with domestic violence, the rest of the show should be pretty smooth sailing after that.”
But the joke did not sit as well with many others watching it on Netflix. Rife was criticized for making light of domestic violence, especially against women.
Rife got more backlash when he used an ableist joke to respond to the abuse criticism. On Monday, he posted an Instagram story that indicated a link to his “official apology” only for it to lead to an e-commerce site selling special needs helmets.
He followed this up with another link, labeled “this one’s real this time.” That one directed to the Bad Santa clip on his YouTube page.
Rife’s in it for the clicks, obviously. He did start out on social media, where he amassed a staggering 18.2 million TikTok followers and 6.4 million on Instagram before transitioning to self-produced comedy specials, including “Matt Rife: Only Fans,” which he released on YouTube in December 2021.
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