In November, comic Matt Rife came under scrutiny when his Netflix special, Natural Selection, premiered.
The special was filmed in Washington, DC, and begins with Matt comparing “ratchet” Baltimore to “beautiful” Maryland. Discussing the former, Matt tells the audience: “I’ve only been to Baltimore one time, and the hostess who seats you had a black eye.”
Despite this, it was later confirmed that Matt has two more specials in the works with Netflix, and on Wednesday, he performed a sold-out show at the Hollywood Bowl as part of the Netflix Is A Joke festival.
Needless to say, Variety’s report has not been well-received, with people discussing Matt’s new material on a Reddit forum.
Matt previously sparked ridicule for insisting that his physical appearance makes it harder to be a comedian, telling Men’s Health last year: “People don’t want to laugh at physically attractive people, you don’t want to walk on stage and have people looking at your arms rather than listening to your jokes.”
Matt often references his conventional good looks in his stand-up sets, but footage of him looking remarkably different in 2015, age 20, on the MTV show Wild ’N Out has sparked speculation that he has had either plastic surgery or facial filler to transform his appearance over the years.
Matt faced a similar reaction the following month after he was accused of starting “beef” with a six-year-old boy on social media. The planet-obsessed son of TikToker Bunny Hedaya featured in one of her videos to correct Matt’s reference to Jupiter in a clip from his stand-up that was going viral at the time.
