Matt Rife responds to Netflix’s special response to domestic violence jokes
Matt Rife is under fire for making a joke about domestic violence in his new Netflix special – but he doesn’t seem too worried.
The 28-year-old comedian sarcastically responded to critics who criticized him for his “sexist” comments by posting a link for special needs helmets.
“If you’ve ever been offended by a joke I’ve told,” Rife, 28, wrote over a photo of himself in an Instagram story On Monday. “Here is a link to my official apology.”
The link that says “Tap here to solve your problem” brought users to a website which is dedicated to the sale of helmets for special needs.
“We’re on the naughty list,” he captioned a second story, followed by a wink emoji and another link that read, “This time it’s real.”
The second link however redirected users to Rife’s YouTube Page where he presents a piece called “Bad Santa”.
Rife, who rose to fame by gaining a huge TikTok following, opened his special “Natural selection“ with the joke about domestic violence.
According to the embattled comedian, he once visited a restaurant in Ratchet Baltimore where “the hostess who served you had a black eye.”
“A full black eye,” he continued. “It wasn’t like, ‘What happened?’ It was pretty obvious what happened.”
“But we couldn’t get past, ‘This is the face of the company?’ This is who greets people,” he continued. “And my boy I was with said, ‘Yeah, I feel sorry for her, man, I feel like they should put her in the kitchen or somewhere where no one has to see her face.’ And I thought, ‘Yeah, but I feel like if she could cook, she wouldn’t have that black eye.'”
Rife’s special, released on November 15th, immediately drew the ire of several X (formerly Twitter) users.
“The way women catapulted Matt Rife into popularity and as soon as he gets a comedy special on Netflix he immediately betrays them with a crazy joke about domestic violence,” one user said slammed.
“Girls and gays were Matt Rife’s largest demographic and he used his Netflix special to emulate toxic masculinity,” another chastisedadding: “It feels like a betrayal.”
“It’s not Matt Rife who builds his platform on appealing to his female audience and then opening his Netflix special with a joke about domestic violence,” a third person said commented.
Others were equally unhappy with the comedian’s lack of sincerity when responding to the backlash.
“Matt Rife makes a sexist/DV ‘joke’…then sends people to a special needs helmet website as an ‘apology’.” Posted. “There’s a difference between an outlandish joke and just being disrespectful and in bad taste.”
“Oh good. Ableism to prey on misogyny,” another user spat.
The post has reached out to Rife for comment.
Rife told it before diversity that his special was “much more for men”.
“One thing I wanted to do in this special was to show people that no matter what people think about me online, I don’t base my career on women,” Rife said. “I would argue [‘Natural Selection’] is much more for boys.”
When asked if he was afraid of unsettling his audience with his material, the comedian replied that you have to “find your audience.”
“You don’t know what other people are into, and that’s why you have to go out there and do your comedy and just lay it all out there, vulnerable, to find your audience,” he told the outlet. “From my perspective, as a comedian, it’s all about the intention.”
“For me, I know that everything that comes out of my mouth on stage is with the sole intention of making people laugh,” he added. “It is never deeper, never more and never less.”
This isn’t the first time Rife has gotten into trouble for his content.
In February, he was vilified after making an offensive comment about women’s bodies appears on the “Stiff Socks” Podcast.
Widely used later told the New York Times that the comment’s backlash was “a crazy concept” to him since his job was to make people laugh.
