Fresh from his Netflix controversy, US comedian Matt Rife is touring Australia.
And yes, despite the outrage around his comedy special, his shows sold out here. If you've forgotten who the hell Rife is and what he did (hard relate) let us quickly catch you up.
Matt Rife is a comedian with a huge following on TikTok, and a fan base comprised of mostly women. That's arguably because he, er, looks like this.
Rife is popular for his crowd interaction clips shared on TikTok which get millions of views. This brings us to 2023, when Rife's first Netflix comedy special Natural Selection started streaming.
From the outset, it was clear this show wasn't created for women – from digs about astrology to cringe-worthy stereotyping, women were the butt of the joke.
The show opened with a pun about domestic violence, as Rife relayed a time seeing a female waiter in Baltimore with a black eye. He said his friend wondered why she wasn't working in the kitchen and Rife said, "Yeah, but I feel like if she could cook, she wouldn't have that black eye."
It was a lazy joke that was not only victim-blaming, but also one that women have had to endure for years. It's a sexist sentiment that has been shared in all kinds of forms, whether it was something an anonymous person wrote on Reddit or an old high school friend shared on Facebook.
Despite considerable outrage from women, Rife poked fun at their pain by posting a fake apology link on Instagram that landed on a website selling special needs helmets.
He then started a fight with a *literal* child who rightly said he was 'mean to women'. That's a whole other story you can read here.
In response to the comedy special, Rife was 'cancelled' by a host of publications and by several women on TikTok.
But no one told his Australian fans this.
They've been heading out in droves to his sold-out tour, which is currently happening across Perth, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
Rife shared a clip on TikTok from a show in Perth and surprise, surprise... the comedian is continuing to offend.
During a crowd participation segment, he spoke to an Australian man on parole after being in prison for five years.
"What were you in there for?" he asked.
"Imports," the audience member replied.
"Drugs," Rife added.
The joke took a turn when the Australian man said he had come to the show with his daughter, who birthed a child while he was in prison. The child was five years old, which was a detail that led to the comedian suggesting the child was a result of incest.
"He just turned five? Hey man, why did you really go to jail?" Matt said to rapturous applause.
In case you missed it, the joke here is that this father impregnated his own daughter. That's a big yikes from me.
But the joke went down favourably among the Australian audience members. In fact, most of the response from his tour has been overwhelmingly positive, despite it coming off the back of his Netflix controversy.
"I was at this show, I am dying at this interaction," wrote one commenter on Rife's TikTok.
"It looks like Twitter failed to cancel our boi Matt," added another.
After a line-up of Australian shows, which reportedly sold out straightaway, Rife added an extra show in Sydney due to demand.
Feature image: Getty.
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