From courting controversy to hunting ghosts, Matt Rife is surely a force to be reckoned with. But does he actually have a romantic side?
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00:00From courting controversy to hunting ghosts,
00:03Matt Rife is surely a force to be reckoned with. But does he actually have a romantic side?
00:08In June 2023, Matt Rife took to Instagram to announce his upcoming
00:12problematic world tour, with an assist from Ashton Kutcher.
00:17"'Prepare yourself for the tour of a lifetime. Your wish is my command.'"
00:22"'Let's go!'
00:24The packed tour schedule included more than a hundred shows across North America and Europe.
00:29But the road life took an unexpected toll on the young comic. And in May 2024,
00:33he canceled two shows in Bloomington, Indiana, just hours before he was scheduled to take to
00:38the stage, tweeting,
00:39"'I'm so f----- sorry, but due to a last-minute medical emergency,
00:42I have to reschedule our shows tonight again. I've been doing 40-plus shows a
00:46month for a year and a half and never had to do something like this.'"
00:50"'Going from playing clubs for 35 people who got free tickets to,
00:55we broke Ticketmaster, which is insane.'"
00:58The Los Angeles Times reported that ticket holders received an email, explaining,
01:02"'On the way to a recent show in Indiana,
01:04Matt experienced extreme exhaustion symptoms and nearly fainted heading to the venue.
01:09Matt is currently under advisement from his medical team to take immediate time
01:13off from touring for two weeks.'"
01:15Rife took a break and resumed touring in mid-June.
01:19While Rife is hardly an overnight sensation, his rise from relative obscurity to comedy stardom
01:24was quick, and he admits it did a number on him. Speaking to Us Weekly,
01:27Rife confessed to being a little overwhelmed, saying,
01:30"'The dream I had was, okay, if I could just sell out weekends at comedy clubs for 300-seat venues,
01:35I f----- made it. The level of being a Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart, Cat Williams,
01:40these arena acts and top-tier entertainers never even occurred to me.'"
01:44He recalled the years of waking up each morning and having nothing to do all day
01:47until it was time to hit the stage that night, musing,
01:50"'Now I wake up and go, wow, I don't know if I'll ever have a
01:53free day for the rest of my life, which is a blessing and a curse.'"
01:57"'I'm on like an hour of sleep right now. I have like horrific insomnia. If I could
02:00sleep like a normal person, six, seven, eight hours a night, I think I'd be just fine.'"
02:05As for how his newfound fame has affected his mental health, Rife shared,
02:09"'It's gotten so much worse. There's no crash course on how to be famous.'"
02:13On the plus side, however, he confirmed that despite his health setback in the middle,
02:17the problematic tour gave him the confidence that he could pull off
02:20even bigger projects in the future, saying,
02:22"'I've learned that I'm built for this.'"
02:25A rumor about Rife caught fire in November 2023 thanks to a TikTok video by plastic
02:30surgeon Dr. Benjamin Coughlin that quickly went viral. Viewer comments overwhelmingly
02:36speculated that Coughlin was referring to Rife, who was not amused. The comedian responded with
02:41a comment of his own, writing,
02:42"'Lying about medical history is illegal, just FYI.'"
02:46Rife then confronted the rumor head-on during an appearance on Access Hollywood,
02:49when host Mario Lopez asked him to reveal the biggest lie that he'd ever read about himself.
02:55"'That I've had plastic surgery. Because puberty hit me so late.
02:58Like, I didn't look like this until I was like 23.'"
03:02But the rumor obviously got under Rife's skin, because according to USA Today,
03:06he addressed it again during a stand-up set in December 2023, saying,
03:10"'People were saying I had jaw surgery to have a jawline. I'm like,
03:13use your brain. If I'm gonna get transformative surgery done to me,
03:16do you think I'm starting with my face? You would never hear me tell another
03:20joke for the rest of my life.'"
03:21"'I was ugly last week. Like, it was bad. And now,
03:24now I look like a handsome lesbian. Like, it went full-spectrum.'"
03:27There's no question that Rife has become one of the hottest young comics on the stand-up
03:31comedy scene. And according to an interview he gave to Men's Health in August 2023,
03:35the only thing standing between him and superstardom are his extraordinary good looks.
03:41"'No, I feel like a porn star who just wants to act.'"
03:44Apparently, in the world according to Rife, being in killer shape is important when you're
03:48starring in a Hollywood action movie, but not when you're telling jokes. Rife explained,
03:52"'I mean, people don't want to laugh at, like, physically attractive people. Like,
03:55you don't want to walk on stage and have people looking at your arms rather than listening
03:58to your jokes.'"
03:59But that didn't stop him from working out. Instead, he bravely bears the burden of his
04:03physical beauty, claiming that it forces him to work harder on his material in order to shift the
04:08focus away from his buff body. Or, in other words, ladies, my jokes are up here.
04:14Rife knew there would be backlash when he joked about domestic abuse in his 2023 Netflix special
04:19Matt Rife Natural Selection. But he went for it from the very first joke. It started out as a
04:24story about a waitress with a massive black eye.
04:27"'I feel like if she could cook, she wouldn't have that black eye.'"
04:31Yikes. But the thing about Rife is that he doesn't care what you think,
04:36and he doesn't mind telling you. In a post to his Instagram stories, he wrote,
04:40"'If you've ever been offended by a joke I've told, here's a link to my official apology.'"
04:44The post included a link that read,
04:46"'Tap to solve the issue.'" According to Variety, the link led to a website selling
04:50helmets to protect the heads of people with special needs. If anything was an invitation
04:55to be canceled, that was, but nothing happened.
04:58Rife addressed the lack of actual consequences in a set at the Hollywood Bowl, saying,
05:02"'What am I gonna do? Get canceled? Cool, I'll do another bowl show,
05:06awesome. You know, that's not a real punishment. Nothing happens, prison's a punishment.'"
05:12Obviously, when it comes to controversy, Rife prefers to push the envelope rather than play
05:16it safe. Speaking to Variety, he explained,
05:19"'I don't believe there's anything you can't talk about if you do it correctly,
05:22in the right way, at the right time. You have to be yourself and not worry about
05:26offending a certain amount of people. You might miss out on a joke that you're worried
05:29might offend somebody, but might make you a million new fans.'"
05:33But it's not that Rife doesn't think about what he's saying. In fact,
05:36he's developed a sort of litmus test for himself when he's developing an act.
05:40Appearing on a roundtable panel for Variety, Rife explained that for him,
05:44the difference between a joke that's offensive and one that's merely edgy
05:47is the intent of the comedian. He elaborated,
05:51"'Now, are you trying to upset somebody, or are you trying to make light of a certain subject,
05:54so that way it doesn't take up such a negative space in someone's mind,
05:57and they can laugh about something that may have brought them so much grief?''
06:00Rife's not afraid of breaking new comedy ground, either. His first of two Netflix
06:04specials, Matt Rife Lucid, a crowd work special, debuted in August 2024,
06:09and was a departure for both Rife and Netflix. The show consisted entirely of crowd work,
06:14with Rife generating laughs from his spontaneous interactions with members of the audience.
06:18Directed by comedian Eric Griffin, filming took place at the Comedy Zone in Charlotte,
06:23North Carolina, where in May 2024, Rife performed six sold-out shows with cameras on hand to film
06:28it all.
06:29He was so, so funny. He engaged with the audience like he wanted to learn about everyone."
06:35In order to keep things under wraps, members of the audience not only had to sign release forms
06:39in order to appear on camera, but were also ordered to hand over their phones so that footage
06:44wouldn't leak on the internet. Crowd work has long been a specialty of Rife's, even though it
06:48can be hit-or-miss. He believes that it keeps his stand-up skills sharpened, telling the Los
06:53Angeles Times,
06:54"'It keeps me on my toes.'"
06:56Back in 2017, when Rife was just 21 years old, he briefly dated British movie star Kate Beckinsale,
07:02who was twice his age. That romance ended badly, but in 2023, Rife got involved with actor and
07:07dancer Jessica Lord, who's best known for starring in the Hulu series Find Me in Paris.
07:12Rife opened up about the relationship in an October 2023 interview with People, sharing,
07:17"'It's newer, but I mean, I do prefer to keep it on the more private side.'"
07:22Surprisingly, for someone whose act is all about his personal life,
07:25he doesn't like to talk about it offstage. He credited Lord for keeping his life as
07:28balanced as possible while he was on tour, saying,
07:31"'She forces me to take personal time, obviously, and I love that.'"
07:35At the time, Rife told Esquire that he was looking for a traditional relationship, admitting,
07:40"'I know I am just in my mid-to-late 20s, but still, I do want a wife and a family and a
07:44prominent home life that makes me feel comfortable, safe, and is my peace.'"
07:48Unfortunately, the relationship didn't last, and in July 2024, TMZ reported that the couple
07:53had split. True to form, Rife addressed the split honestly and even somewhat vulnerably in his act.
07:59"'I f----- hate being single. This s---- is so trash.'"
08:08Like many comedians, Rife has ventured into acting, shooting guest spots on such TV sitcoms
08:12as Fresh Off the Boat and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. But he also starred in an indie comedy feature,
08:17The Private Eye.
08:18"'Really bad at this, huh?'
08:23"'Their name is Mort. But yeah.'"
08:26Rife plays a hapless, broke P.I. named Mort Madison who scores a strange case.
08:31Private Eye was released on video and streaming in August 2024.
08:35"'At least give me your name. I'm a detective.'"
08:39If Rife gets his wish, he'll be doing a lot more acting. He told Deadline,
08:43"'I love acting just as much, if not more,
08:45than stand-up. I just haven't been doing it as long, and I haven't been able to get my foot
08:49in the door. I'm really looking forward to the next project that I work on in acting
08:52to be something I'm really proud of.'"
08:54There's no question that when Rife sets a goal, he works hard to achieve it.
08:58He wants to act, so according to an April 2024 report in Deadline,
09:02he was in the process of writing a new workplace sitcom set in a gym,
09:06starring himself, destined for Netflix. But as we've established,
09:10another constant in Rife's world is controversy. And as soon as the project was announced,
09:14the backlash began. An article popped up in The Mary Sue titled,
09:18"'The Last Thing I Want' is a Workplace Comedy from Matt Rife." In writer Rachel Leishman's opinion,
09:23"'Rife has proven that his written jokes lean towards sexism,
09:27so why would I want to see an entire show where he's acting out said jokes?'
09:31She went on to address the crowded workplace sitcom space, then brought it back to him with
09:35a withering prediction, writing,
09:37"'Given how his last stand-up special went,
09:39I don't think that his premise is going to go well by any stretch of the imagination.'"
09:44Of course, the odds that Rife cares what she thinks are slim to none, leading toward none.
09:49In an episode of his paranormal ghost-hunting series, Overnight,
09:52Rife spent a night in the Rhode Island house that inspired The Conjuring.
09:56That night must have been far more enjoyable than he let on at the time,
10:00because afterward, he seriously looked into buying the haunted home, telling E! News,
10:04"'It's incredible. It's my favorite scary movie franchise by far.
10:07I think I could do incredible things with it.'"
10:09"'Man, my biggest fear is the dark, dude. You don't know what's in there. You have no clue.
10:13I'll tell you what's in there. Ghosts and monsters.'"
10:16And it seems like it was more than just PR, because Rife's friend, comic Elton Castee,
10:20tweeted,
10:21"'Hey Conjuring House, myself and Matt Rife are ready and willing to buy it if you're keen to
10:25sell. Any date, we're ready to make it happen.'" At the time, Rife had already bought property in
10:30Rhode Island, not far from The Conjuring House. The lot is 80 acres and includes two four-bedroom
10:35homes. As Rife explained on the podcast, Are You Garbage?,
10:38"'I got all that for probably the price of a two-bedroom with no yard in L.A.'"
10:43Like many celebrities, Rife receives gifts from fans. However, some of those gifts have veered
10:48into the weird category. In a sit-down with fellow comedian Tom Segura on the latter's Your Mom's
10:53House podcast, Rife shared,
10:55"'I've gotten hair, I've gotten toenails, no letter to go with them, just in a bag.'"
11:00"'At your shows, Matt, even grandmas be throwing their bras at you.'"
11:05Then there are the fans who believe they have a close personal connection with him,
11:09not realizing they're the victims of online scammers. Rife explained,
11:12"'So many people will come to shows and be like,
11:14Matt told me to come here, I sent him $1,000 last week.'"
11:18He went on to single out one particularly gullible fan who insisted she needed to
11:22meet Rife after a show. According to Rife, he was standing on the other side of the stage door,
11:27listening to the woman interact with members of his security team.
11:31"'And a lady was like, I've been texting with Matt for weeks, we exchange sexy photos together.'"
11:37She tried to prove it by showing the bouncers her phone, insisting,
11:41"'Look, he's texting me right now.'"
11:43Needless to say, Rife, who was listening to the exchange in real time, wasn't using his phone.
11:48Afterward, Rife had an important message for fans who believe they're communicating with him online.
11:54"'I'm never gonna ask for money.'"
11:56Most celebrities write their memoirs as they reflect back on long careers,
12:00but Rife decided to start early. He was 28 when he signed a deal with Simon & Schuster's imprint,
12:05Gallery Books, for Your Mom's Gonna Love Me, described as being a one-part memoir,
12:10one-part comedy special, one-part crazy first date. Rife announced the book and
12:14audiobook on Instagram in October 2024, with a release date in December, before his 30th birthday.
12:20In a statement from the publisher, Rife said,
12:22"'I'm excited for this book to give fans a new medium to get to know me and my journey
12:26on a deeper, more personal level.' I pushed for more smut, but the publishers said no."