Comedian Matt Rife has left fans fuming after joking about domestic violence in his new Netflix special.
The controversial star opened his new special Natural Selection with a quip about heading to a restaurant in Baltimore with a friend, before noticing their female server has a black eye. They argue she should be kept in the kitchen so customers don’t feel uncomfortable.
Then Rife said: “Yeah, but I feel like if she could cook, she wouldn’t have that black eye.” He then told the crowd: “I’m just testing the waters, seeing if y’all are gonna be fun or not. I figure if we start the show with domestic violence the rest of the show should be smooth sailing.”
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He initially elaborated: “A full black eye. It wasn’t like, ‘What happened?’ It was pretty obvious what happened.
“But we couldn’t get over, like, this is the face of the company? This is who you have greeting people,” he continued. “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.’”
Rife then offered a mock ‘apology’ via Instagram after offending viewers with his gig. Alongside the caption: “If you’ve ever been offended by a joke I’ve told, here’s a link to my official apology,” he included a link that read: “Tap to solve the issue”.
That link led to a health website which sells special needs helmets – leading viewers to assume he was mocking people with additional needs.
It’s far from the only controversial comment he’s ever made. Appearing on the Stiff Socks podcast, he made several critical remarks about the size of a woman’s clitoris. He told hosts Trevor Wallace and Michael Blaustein: “Am I supposed to f*** you or thumb wrestle you?
“I don’t love a giant clit. I don’t want to look down and feel like God left the tag on you. I don’t want your p**** to look like the gum from Sausage Party.”
Rife is now desperate to appeal to a more masculine audience, after originally attracting mostly women to his audiences. He told Variety: “One thing that I wanted to tackle in this special was showing people that, like, despite what you think about me online, I don’t pander my career to women. I would argue this special is way more for guys.”
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He claimed during a podcast appearance that his audience is 90% woman who “aren’t fans for the right reasons”. Elaborating: “So, they bring their boyfriends or husbands who are always reluctant because they f***ing probably bought the tickets. They didn’t wanna be there, and then like 20 minutes into the show, they realise my comedy is so much more for guys than it is girls.”
Fans have been left fuming on social media, with one writing: “There’s a difference between an edgy joke and just being disrespectful and distasteful.” While another echoed: “Not Matt Rife building his platform on catering to his female audience and then opening his Netflix special with a domestic violence joke.”
“The girls and gays were Matt Rife‘s biggest demographic and he used his Netflix special to pander to toxic masculinity. It feels like a betrayal,” someone else agreed.
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