Matt Rife responds to criticism of domestic violence joke with ‘apology’ link to special needs helmets

In response to this, Rife took his Instagram Stories Monday night, not to defend his joke or apologize for it, but to target an entirely different demographic and possibly stir up another nest of controversy.

“If you’ve ever been offended by a joke I told you,” he captioned an image of himself on stage, “here’s a link to my official apology.”

The link itself was titled “Tap to resolve your issue.” But it didn’t end up on a page of apology. Instead, it refers to Medical store website page for suitable helmets.

A few hours later, Rife returned to his Stories with an apparent reaction to this first message. “We’re on the naughty list,” he captioned a new image with a smiling, winking emoji. This link was titled “This one’s real this time” with a crying and laughing emoji.

He took the fans to last link all alone Youtube page where he teases a few members of his group about how they met. The song is titled “Bad Santa”, which explains its reference in Stories.

The original offensive joke was set up by Rife saying that he and a friend were at a “ratchet” restaurant in Baltimore when they realized their server had a black eye. When the friend wondered why she wouldn’t have been moved to the kitchen so customers wouldn’t have to see it, Rife replied: “Yeah, but I feel like if she knew how to cook , she wouldn’t have that black eye.”

Immediately after this opening joke, Rife appeared to gauge the audience’s response, telling the crowd that he was “just testing the waters, to see if y’all were going to be funny or not.”

“I think if we start the show with domestic violence,” he continued, “the rest of the show should go smoothly.”

Rife, who admitted in an interview with Variety that his fan base was originally more female, due to his viral success on TikTok, he wanted to prove with this first big special that his material is for both genders. “I would say this stage is much more for the guys,” he told the outlet.

Rife’s final slide on his Instagram Stories at the time of publication, he was celebrating that his Netflix special Natural selection is currently number one on the Top 10 TV Shows in the United States Today.

Meanwhile, a good portion of those who attended the special took to social media to respond to this opening choice to make a joke about domestic violence and they’re certainly not laughing… at the joke initial or its ableist response.