Club Shay Shay - Matt Rife Part 2

This is the biggest night in podcasting. The countdown is on to our 2026 iHeart Podcast Awards. Live from South by Southwest, March 16th, we'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative, talented creators in the industry. It's truly a who's who of the podcasting world. Creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. And the winner of the iHeart Podcast Award is... See all the nominees now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals all in one easy app. Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial at audible.com. Thank you for coming back. Part two is underway. So how did it feel? Because you went from this like, I'm sure you was kind of somewhat popular, but now you got teeth and people like look like. You got teeth and people. Yeah, they'll be like, well, damn, Matt, hey, Matt ain't too bad. Now that I look at him, I'm looking at him. The women, because now you're a ladies guy. Oh, that's very kind of you to say. Yeah, you know it. Because they're like, I don't know. I don't know who roster Matt or Pete. I think Matt might have Usain Bolted. Usain Bolted. Listen, it's an amazing fan base to have. Women and black people are the best fan bases you could possibly have. They're going to spin and come. there's so much passion man like if there's support there's support absolutely it's like in the beginning i used to think i had to stand up for that people would be like oh he's just like a girl's community only girls like him and i used to not understand it so i was coming at a place of like i was coming from a place of ego being like no i'm i'm for everybody like guys guys like me too i used to get defensive about it and deny it not realizing it was like the biggest possible compliment. Somebody took something I said out of context on a podcast one time in the very beginning of everything blowing up when they were asking about all my female fans and everything. And the way I was saying, the way I responded was incorrect verbiage. I had said something like, I hate it, which wasn't right. I was trying to describe the energy at these shows because I was doing smaller theaters in the midst of everything, in the midst of the mania of when I first, first blew up and like the whole crowd is is like 80 women right and they're screaming like boy band shit throughout the whole shit i literally couldn't get through the shows like couldn't finish a joke people are screaming standing up trying to get attention and at that time i'm like i'm trying to build a set i have a netflix special i have to go film like i i really have to work i'm trying to be a performer right now and an artist and work on this and i can't deal with this distraction right now. So at the time, it was just frustrating. It wasn't that I had a problem with the fan base. I was just like, just sit and listen. And I promise you will have a good time. But I had misspoken in a podcast. It got taken out of context. And people thought I was complaining about having a female fan base. It's the best fan base to have. Just chill and laugh. That's all. Do you see all the shoes and the handbags they got? If they like something, they gonna spin. Bro, they'll be sitting next to their husband being like, Matt Reif is my hall pass on a shirt. And I'm like, you just gonna bring your cuck husband to the show who by the way paid for your ticket probably he's furious now he's sitting there he got he'll swallow you he's funny furious about it man but it's the most fun fan base man they're not uptight they're so supportive they give the best energy right i hate that they got twisted at a uh misconception he was also on nbc bring the funny with ali sadiq oh ali yeah he's great i had dude he's so smooth man he's another one of those people like a dc curry where like he can sit in some silence and telling a story. He can sit there, take two, three minutes, and then just, bang. He's an amazing writer, man. I met him through Bill Bellamy back when I was probably 20, something like that. Storytelling. You get guys like Bill Burr, Louis C.K., Carlin. I think right now the greatest storyteller, maybe the greatest storyteller ever is Chappelle. It's prophetic. The way he can jump over and jump back and weave in and out and dodge. He's the greatest of all time, man. He's got to be. And I'm old enough to remember Pryor. Really? Yes, I remember Murphy. It's hard for me to say there's a comedian better than Chappelle right now, ever. I can't see it, man. He's from about 45 minutes south of me in Ohio. I grew up and my friends and I used to joke around, like, well, we just drove down there and just happened to run into him. Like, oh, that never happened. Then you go to Yellow Springs. He is just around town. He's just walking down the sidewalk. yeah it's so it's so crazy that somebody who went from being my favorite comedian of all time has become like an actual like friend and mentor like he he has given me he's given me so much good advice um not just stand-up wise like business wise and everything he's trying to point me in the right direction he's somebody i'll call if i have uh any questions or want any advice on like how to navigate a certain subject or how to navigate something in the public eye like you know what should i i mean it's ultimately up ultimately up to you but like you know when you're coming to when you want somebody's advice on like should I stand on something do I give in how long do you play the game how much do you be yourself right he's somebody who sacrificed everything for what was important to him yes came back and then still beat the game yeah so there's nobody's opinion I respect more and that's what man there's nothing I love when like another comedian will give me shit like certain comedians won't like me or whatever it's like Dave Chappelle loves to watch my set like I'll I'll go do a set with him and he'll come back with notes after me like I love this i love this i think maybe you should move this to the end move this up here and i'm like man you actually cared enough to watch wow he's the nicest person i've ever met man to get the approval of somebody you respect so much like that's what that's what matters man i think the thing that makes chappelle so great is that what they tried to take away from him he didn't value see they can only counsel you if you value something that yeah they think you value it absolutely they tried to take hollywood he didn't never value that and so he's like okay i'll go way I do my own thing. He'll list something I'm going to be here. And it's sold out in a minute. Absolutely. He doesn't care, man. He took all the power. He realized the power is what you stand for and the power is in the love of your fans, man. And nobody can take that from him. And he can talk about anything. The way he can spend any topic into a 20-minute rant that's just hilarious, can be off the cuff, so well-informed. Oh my goodness. He's prophetic, man. I could listen. I don't I don't listen to a lot of podcasts, but I could just put his voice on for hours and just feel like I genuinely learned a new perspective. His specials on Netflix, if you just like, oh, my goodness. I watched Sticks and Stones three times in a row when it came out. And I was on the East Coast in North Carolina at the Charlotte Comedy Zone when it came out. So it came out at 3 a.m. East Coast time. I stayed up and watched it three times in a row. I felt it's my favorite special of all time. I wrote like 20 new minutes after that special. I was so inspired. Wow. It's incredible, man. He's the greatest of all time. What do you think the biggest difference is in production? Let's say from black production when you're dealing with Wilding Out versus the NBC production, Bring the Funny. Do you notice the difference in how writers write? I would say it's just the limitations, really, because you're on network TV. MTV, you can get away with saying a lot because they can bleep things. They do a lot of edits. But network, a lot of it has to be under PG-13. And that was a weird competition, too, because it was like comedians versus like magicians versus sketch comedy groups versus like musical acts. It was kind of an incomparable competition. But it was, again, great exposure. When that show had finished, I made it to the semifinals for that one. And when that had finished in the end of 2019, I was like selling some really great tickets in comedy clubs. I had some really exciting momentum in my career. And then COVID happened and shut all that shit down. But I had a really fun experience on Bring the Funny because the night before the semifinals, they make you submit your set, like word for word, how are you going to say it to make sure network approves of it. Wow. And I had this set that I had submitted to them twice before because they make you submit some in advance as well. And I had this bit that they, I don't even remember what it was, but they had approved it twice. And then the night before I'm laying in bed at my hotel at Universal Studios and they go, yeah, you can't do that joke. And I was like, I've already done all my material I can kind of do for this show. And they're like, I don't know what to tell you. So I wrote a brand new bit like the night before having to do it on like network TV. Yeah. It ended up being a really fun bit. I really enjoyed it. It didn't get me through the rounds, but I was like very proud of myself that I could take that kind of pressure and inconvenience and like turn nothing into something. Had that joke been allowed, that joke you think you advanced? It's hard to remember what the joke was at that point. I know I was confident in it for sure because I was saving it for the finals of the semifinals. So, I mean, possibly. But I believe Ali won the show, didn't he? Good for him, man. Good for him. But that was interesting. It was Jeff Foxworthy, Chrissy Teigen, and Kenan Thompson. Yeah. Yeah, that's an interesting panel of judges. You ended up on TikTok. Were you surprised that what happened with TikTok, those million of views, actually turned into like, damn. Bro, yeah, because I never wanted to do it. I hate TikTok. It's the most poisonous thing on earth right now. When it was about to get banned in America, I was stoked. You're like, yes! I was so excited, man. Because it's also, it's unreliable. I built an audience of, I think I'm at like 20 million followers or like 19.7 or some shit. So I was getting to a point where I was getting a million views an hour on there as soon as I posted a video. It was an explosion of exposure on there. And then little by little, it started to go away a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, which I'm like, that's fine. You're only something new and fancy for a little while. And then after about a year and a half went by, it just completely dropped off. I couldn't reach any of my followers for some reason. So I started hitting up TikTok. Like, you know, they can find you a representative that works over there and everything. And they told me through my face on Zoom. They were like, yeah, we just don't push stand-up anymore. I was like, okay, so I have 20 million followers who want to see what I'm posting and you won't let them see it. And they're like, this is the biggest night in podcasting. The countdown is on to our 2026 iHeart Podcast Awards live from South by Southwest. March 16th, we'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative, talented creators in the industry. It's truly a who's who of the podcasting world. Creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. And the winner of the iHeart Podcast Award is... See all the nominees now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals all in one easy app, Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial at audible.com. I'm Daniel Jeremiah. And I'm Greg Rosenthal. And this is 40s and free agents. The games may be over, but the NFL never stops. This is my favorite part of the calendar. Yeah, mine too, Greg. Free agency, the combine, the NFL draft, pro days, trades. This is where teams reshape their future. 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Listen to 40s and free agents on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. yeah we just we only push the the trends that are current right now and they said stand-up comedy was a trend on our platform but you kind of helped spearhead quite a bit but they were like it went on for much longer than it should have most trends only last like a month or two and uh yeah now we just don't push stand-up as a platform and they were like you know good luck and i was like well how am i supposed to like so what am i what am i doing the 20 million followers that i got so what i said how am i supposed to reach it what do you suggest they said maybe just do the trends like you know, if there's a new dance people are doing or whatever on zoom, I said, I'll kill myself on Tik TOK live before I ever dance on Tik TOK. Are you crazy? They didn't find it funny at all, but I was also dead serious. I'm not going to do that, man. Like my standup is what got me this far, whether it be the, the crowd work clips or material from the special, whatever it may be. It's such a shame that I can't advise other comedians to like build an audience on social media because eventually they're just going to shift the algorithm and you can't reach them anyways. It's so unfortunate. They want to keep you in place. They're not going to let you get too big. As much as it sounds like a conspiracy, they have a knob. They have a knob they can just turn somebody back on or a topic or a hashtag, whatever it may be, and then that no longer gets exposure anymore. I never wanted to do it. I don't love social media. I think it's incredibly toxic. It's not good for you as a person for sure, but it's such a tool that we have to use now. Comedians don't just have to write jokes. Right. You used to just be like, man, write your five, get on Carson, get you a sitcom. Yeah. Now you're good. You got to be a whole social media manager. You got to be a production team. You got to learn how to work a camera. You got to learn how to edit. You got to learn how to do sound. And it's not even for something that can last. It's incredibly unfortunate. it you look matt when you look at you went from making 10 15 25 to 30 and now you making millions did this did it seem like is this real i'm sure when you got that first big i'm talking about big big big check you're like is this is real did somebody really just send me a check for this man this ain't man i ain't no way i tell you it wasn't it wasn't even the larger ones that caught me off guard i was doing off the hook comedy club in naples florida okay that was my first like real club headlining weekend. And usually for a weekend, if you're doing not that many tickets, your guarantee is like $1,500, right? Which is fine, but that's also your hotel, your flight, everything's included in that. And I think the check was for like $12,000. And I genuinely went, I took the check back to the manager and I was like, are you sure? And he was like, yeah, man, you sold tickets. Like this is, this is what a headliner would get for this weekend. It blew my, I'd never made that money doing any one thing in my entire life. It's been unbelievable. The money, it gives you a new freedom. You know what I mean? So much of the world is consumed by check-to-check payments, right? And having to pay your bills out of that check immediately. You don't have any room to just enjoy your life with the money. It's discretionary fun. Yeah, exactly. You don't get to enjoy what you really earn. So now that creatively I can kind of afford to do the things I want, Like, it's, I mean, a relief is such an obvious word to say, but, like, it allows me to focus on the other things that I want to do. And I'm so grateful for that. To be able to take care of your family. To be able to take care of your friends. Like, getting to hire your friends is, I don't know if you know any of these guys. No. No. No. No. I just, I mean, I met them five minutes before you did. Not even to do with the ponytail? No. What? Five minutes before you did. They seem like lovely people. So the best part about it is getting to take care of your people, man. The fact that they get to reap the rewards of your hard work is so rewarding. I'm so grateful for that. But if you think about it, Matt, being a comedian today, because the social media aspect of it, and you see a lot of these guys, they start with skits and you see these guys blowing up, whereas before you had to grind. You had to get into the clubs. You had to be good. And if you weren't good, you were going to fall by the wayside. Now a guy can get, he can blow up on social media. Now, once you go into them clubs, now you better be funny. Yeah. Because doing a skit funny is one thing. Stand-up funny is something entirely different. Oh, 100%. I'll see people take the viral fame and they're going on tour or whatever. And my first instinct is it's good for you. Yeah. Get your money. You know what I mean? Do what you got to do. People want to come see you live, by all means. But you got to do it right the first time. If you don't do it right the first time, they're not going to want to come back and see you twice. And that's where the power really lies. It's just consistency, right? Especially when you're upgrading your venues, going from comedy clubs, I gotta get the same people who saw me at a comedy club to come see me at a theater Gotta get the same theater audience to kinda wanna come see me at an arena The consistency arena The consistency is key man That comes back to being ready for it right There no shortcuts to this Had I not been doing comedy for 12 years before all this happened, there's no way I could have handled it. Wow. But the work is where the fun is, man. How often do you hear, like, enjoy the journey? Yes. When you're in the journey, you're like, this shit sucks, man. This is the worst road that takes ever. You don't get an opportunity to appreciate it. You really don't. You really don't, man. I do kind of miss of the days of like just showing up at the laugh actor or whatever and be like oh man I hope I get a chance to go up now versus now I can walk in though just be like do you want to yeah but there's there's there's something to that I don't know if it's the I don't know if it's just the humbling to it I don't know I don't know exactly what it is but there's just something to the unknown you know it's it's it's not something to be overlooked well we part you you mentioned TikTok earlier America we purchased TikTok do you believe TikTok would have been what it was had it been american on from the jump oh i mean i don't see a lot of asians on there so it's always it's always kind of felt american to me i don't know it it caters to your but the asian don't let asian they can created it but they don't let their people get on tiktok is that really a thing i think so really yeah well that's a damn shame but you know what good for them they created poison and they're like give it to the americans don't you drink it don't you that's actually brutal okay hey, China, I see you. All right. Yeah, I didn't even think about that. But I know certain countries, certain states are kind of cracking down on that. I heard that Florida's cracking down. Like you can't be on social media before you're 16. I think that's imperative, man. I think it's not good for kids, man. It's not good for adults. Well, I think somebody, whether it was social media, but the parents have to sign up for it, that you will get alert if your kids look for something suicidal, say something about it more than once, they'll get an alert. if you're signed up for it. Well, it's just the kind of content that they're consuming. It opens them up to cyberbullying and all that. I mean, haters live on the internet. They do. Misery loves company. That is so true. And they don't exist in the real world. No. That's what these kids got to realize. Yes. You close your laptop, turn your phone off, you'll be just fine. YouTube. You released a special on YouTube. You like YouTube. They've been good to me. Yeah, absolutely. They've been good to us. Yeah. because you you like like youtube and everybody's like that and you see a lot of a lot of companies are trying to come out and be competitive with youtube they're trying to get podcasts and they're trying to get netflix's biggest competitor yes yeah yes um and you see youtube they have nfl football netflix has nfl football because they're you need live content you need it if you're trying to be a network you try to be a television station you leave you need live content can i ask you how do you feel about like the live comedy specials on Netflix how do you feel do you feel like specials are supposed to be something that kind of takes its uh production edit and takes this moment or do you kind of enjoy the live aspect of like we'll see how it happens we'll see how that show plays out in real time uh I mean I I love specials I mean delirious and raw and and seeing all those things coming up when I was a kid um I love it I love but but I know but I it's like I like to go to a comedy, I like like, okay, this is unscripted. You can't say this. You can't say that. That's what I love about the comedy show. Absolutely. When you go to a real comedy show. There's nothing like it live, man. There's nothing like it live. This is one thousand. I mean, I would love to see Chappelle. One thousand percent. Okay. Anything goes. Have you seen him live before? I have never seen him live before. What? I haven't. Let me know a day. I'll make that happen. I got you. There's nothing like it, man. He'll go for two and a half hours on the most important subjects going on in the world. That's what makes it. It may have happened that morning. That's what makes him so unique, Matt. Everybody's afraid to touch a lot of the things that he's touching on. They wouldn't touch that with a thousand foot pole, let alone with arms length. He's invincible right now. And he's also, it helps that he's a genius, right? You can respect what he's saying. You can disagree with as much as you can, and you're welcome to do that. But he's going to well articulate whatever his perspective is on that. And there's just nothing like a live show. You can't capture the energy on camera. You can't think about how amazing wrong delirious are. Yes. Now think about how amazing that would have been to see live. You can't touch it. No special, no matter how great your favorite special is. It's nothing like what it was in the room. No, it's it's so unfortunate, man. Go see a live show. If you have a favorite comedian, no matter who they are, go see them in person. Just additions. Is that like you said you're thinking about trans maybe doing a little bit more in the television movie space as opposed to stand up. now. So how do you transition? Because now you're starting to blow up and you're like, you're really thinking about like, you know what? I kind of want to do a movie. I kind of want to do sitcoms. I kind of want to do other things and kind of transition away. Because Eddie was at that peak. And he said, you know what? I really want to do movies. And you hear 48 Hours and you hear Coming to America and you see all these things that happened. You really, really like, you know what? I know I'm at the apex, but you know what? I kind of want to transition. I think it's just wherever your passion lies right like i've always loved acting as much as i've liked stand-up i just haven't been doing it for as long and i haven't been able to i guess get my foot in the door the same way as i have in stand-up granted we talked about earlier it's a different game right it takes a bunch of different people's approval rather than just winning over your fans right your fans can't vote you into being into a movie unfortunately um so it's something i'm really really uh excited about for sure but it's it's a different craft man i spent six months living in vancouver at the last year filming The Altruist for Netflix, the Julia Garner show. And that was my first real experience being a part of this gigantic month-to-month-long production and just getting to really study these other performers. I've been around comedians my entire life. Since 15 years old, I've been around 40, 50, 60-year-old comedians and watched the way they craft their art. Acting is a different beast, man. I have such a respect for it. And it's something that's new and exciting for me. I've been doing stand-up for so long. Acting is something that it tests a new muscle in me. It's learning a whole new craft. There's something exciting about being brand new at something again. So you like that? Yeah, absolutely, man. I would try most things for the first time. I think it's really exciting. It's so rewarding as well, man. You get the respect of somebody you've really, really looked up to, like Julia Garner, Anthony Boyle, who are leading this show. Getting to learn and study from two of the best in the business right now is an amazing opportunity. Man, how you get that brother caught up at your show, man? Which one? You know the black guy got caught with a side chick. Oh, man, in Pittsburgh. Yeah. Terry? Oh, Terry! Don't you even know his name? No, of course, man. Terry, I hope you're alright, man. He ain't alright. What do you mean? I hope you chose, Terry. Bro, that shit was wild. You hope he alright. You know he not alright. Woman, don't bring your side chick to the show. You can't put the light on him. Don't laugh. So black. I don't know what to tell you. He was bringing so much attention to himself. I didn't want it to be about him. He drove all the attention to himself. All I wanted to know is, are you with your lady? And he snitched on himself so fast. And then at another show, the lady came back and was like, no, I know his real girl. It was crazy, man. He did that to himself. People get themselves caught up, man. I was cold playing people long before the Jumbo trial. Yeah, I was going to say, like the cold play situation that she was up there hugging. I'm like, bro, now you know you can't be doing that. You out there wrong. In the wild. Yes. Yeah, it happens, man. And people, but I hate to say those are the people that make the best content, right? Like you come to a show and you're the one screaming out, wanting to be the person that gets talked to for a cut. That's usually not the person you want to talk to. It's the least assuming person. Yeah, they just try to say, oh, I sure hope you don't talk to me. Oh, 100%. Are you in a wheelchair? You're going to get it. 100%. I got to know what's going on, man. You're going to look suspicious. I got to find out. On your crowd work, you do. You go after A. You don't have a problem. because is there anything that you won't do in a set? Is there anybody that you won't go after? No, that's so insane. What are we talking about? We're talking about comedy, right? We're talking about the context of a comedy show. Jokes are for everybody, man. I don't believe, the idea of punching up and punching down is so stupid. What are you, punching? It's jokes. Yes. We're all equal. We are in this room together, right? I don't think of anybody below me. So I can't do jokes about you because I feel sorry for you. I pity you. I feel like you're less of a person than I am. Hell no, I want to treat you like you're an equal, right? You see somebody who's, we use a handicap as an example, whatever. How often do you think they get treated different? Well, you can't say, well, theoretically, you're not supposed to say disabled or handicapped. You're supposed to say limited mobility. I'm just saying, I'm just saying, I don't want to get my show. I don't want YouTube to get me. So mobility restricted. i'm just saying man i'm saying hey i'm not giving it up mobility mobility restricted until somebody with cerebral palsy corrects me to my face i'm i i can't give it up i'm sorry mobility restrict yeah you've never heard that before if that is the correct term i'm not changing it i i i i how how many times we're going to change the restrictions on jokes man that in the terms you're supposed to use right didn't they change homeless recently to like uh the unhoused or something. That sounds way worse. You can't cater to everybody's feelings, man. And also jokes aren't for everybody. It's for the people at the comedy show. If you come, I would hope you know what to expect. There's nothing that's off limits. Everybody is the same. I don't do this whole victimization of you can't talk about this person or whatever they're going through because you've never experienced yourself. That's why I have a comedic perspective on it, right? Because I don't know about it. Sometimes ignorance can be comedic as long as it's coming from a good place, right? how often you think people get treated different especially people who are uh mobility mobily mobily limited people walk by them they don't say hello they don't look in the eyes they don't ask them they don't they're afraid to talk to them or anything like that this is the one place where they get to be treated like a normal person i take a lot of pride in that before you did your net first netflix special did people really know that you had a dark sense of humor yeah man watch any of the clips bro watch any of it man i i love dark humor it's my absolute to laugh at the most thing is is the beautiful art of irony right like you know what the correct thing is to say so saying the complete opposite that is what makes it funny and if that's not for you that's fine you don't gotta like it change the channel right you don't gotta ruin somebody's life over it right it's so it's so frustrating to me man i love it if you can't laugh at the dark shit in this life how you gonna make it because there's a fine line that you have to walk matt because i'm assuming you want sponsorships you want endorsements you want brands and those brands sometimes succumb to people like you if you don't if you have him endorsing your product and he said this about this this and this we won't and then they start an online petition and they start boycotting they start this and that and the the the networks and the the advertisers and the brands become like you know what? It's just not worth the hassle. And unfortunately you are, you're speaking a hundred percent facts, but all that comes at the price of being yourself, right? That's what I think people mean when they say like, Oh, somebody sold out. It's like, okay, you sacrifice being truly yourself, which for me is what got me to where I'm at. Now my sense of humor and joking about the things that I like to joke about, whether it be dark or not, got me to where I'm at now. So if I were to sacrifice that for a brand deal, which don't get me wrong, I would love, you don't think I'd like some money to work with calvin klein or levi's or whatever maybe of course i would love that but then i'm betraying my fans then i'm also betraying myself now i'm constantly now they have power over me of what i can and can't say right and that's i don't know i don't know if i can sacrifice that man i i battle with it all the time right my team will call all the time like so and so wants to work with you but can you trim these jokes from your set and i'm like i don't think i can man because that's a slippery slope it starts here now i can't do the rest of it now I can't joke about this thing. I can't joke about this thing. It's now you put all the material that I can and can't joke about. Yeah. And I got to, I have a long future ahead of me, man. I don't want to, I don't want to start with that and then have to bail myself. I don't want to have to go to Africa for five years. You know what I mean? When you started receiving all this backlash, did you become depressed? You're like, man, what am I doing? Can I, can I just do this and make a lot of people? I can make a lot of money, make some people happy, but the person that's going to be most depressed and most sad is me. because at the end of the day, I'm the one that lives with this person. I see all these thoughts. I walk by the mirror all the time. No. Bro, when all of that stuff started to happen, when I first started to become controversial, which is crazy. You think I'm controversial. You're weak as fuck. To me, it was more like, oh, wow. I didn't know this is how a part of the world is. Really? Because I know who I am. I know my intentions with jokes. No matter the subject I'm joking about, my only intention is to make you laugh because it's something that makes me laugh. It means nothing more than that. I'm not trying to push an agenda. I'm not trying to hurt anybody's feelings. So when I saw that people would try to derail somebody's entire life because of the subject matter of a joke at a comedy show, it was more eye-opening that I was like, wow, people, there's really people out there who will try to take everything from you just because they don't like something that you did. Yeah. So it didn't make me feel any type of way about myself. It more just made me put more walls up. I was like, oh, well, I got to be I got to be more careful about how I navigate my next career move. Right. Because like you said, like brand deals or certain networks can not want to work with you because they just don't want to deal with the backlash. Right. It's not that they even feel the same way about your joke. They can be like, I thought it was hilarious. Yes. We don't feel like dealing with the comment section. Right. But for me, I was more just I was disappointed in society. I was like, wow, those people are really out there trying to take everything. I've worked so hard for this. I've done nothing but try to do good things. I'm nice to everybody. I try to do as many good deeds as possible. I try to extend the blessings I've had to the people I love and give the charities and all this. But they'll still try to take that from me for doing nothing wrong. Right. Yeah. So it didn't really didn't affect me on a personal level. I was just it was more eye opening as well. We're talking about it off camera. You brought a property in Rhode Island. Yeah. I think it's 85 acres. Why Rhode Island? You're from Ohio. How does a kid from Ohio that went to L.A., spent a year in Atlanta, end up in Rhode Island? Man, it's beautiful up there. Have you been? I have not been. But you're welcome any time. Okay, okay. I'm going to come up and do something and check you out and see what y'all got popping up. We got a little horse farm up there. You ever ridden a horse before? A little Shetland pony. What? This is the biggest night in podcasting. The countdown is on to our 2026 iHeart Podcast Awards. Live from South by Southwest, March 16th, we'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative, talented creators in the industry. It's truly a who's who of the podcasting world. Creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. And the winner of the iHeart Podcast Award is... See all the nominees now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals all in one easy app, Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial at audible.com. I'm Daniel Jeremiah. And I'm Greg Rosenthal. And this is 40s and Free Agents. The games may be over, but the NFL never stops. This is my favorite part of the calendar. Yeah, mine too, Greg. Free agency, the combine, the NFL draft, pro days, trades. this is where teams reshape their future. This is where Daniel Jeremiah makes his money. On 40s and free agents, we break down every move that actually matters. From my draft evaluations, mock drafts, and team fits. To my top 101 free agents and how real rosters are built, cap space, contracts, and all the tough decisions included. You got quarterbacks on the move. We got teams rebuilding. It's hope season. Yeah, absolutely. It's hope season. We'll tell you what's real, what's noise and what it means for your favorite team. Smart analysis, real conversations every week. I don't know about the smart, but definitely analysis. Listen to 40s and Free Agents on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Shetland pony when I was a kid What Yeah Why did you have a pony Who got you the pony? My grandfather. What? I think he paid like 40 bucks for it. His name was Ringo. Yeah, that wasn't the reparations he was expecting. A Shetland pony. That wasn't a 40 acres of new and new. Two acres and a Shetland pony. Wow. Okay. A little different from a horse. Yeah. Yeah. It is beautiful up there. It's so peaceful. I had shows in Connecticut at Mohegan Sun up there. And I saw this house on Zillow that was like an hour away. And we had the first part of our day off before the show. I was like, you know, let me just go check out this house. Right. Fell in love with it. The property is beautiful. The area is great. I'm seven minutes from Walmart, five minutes from Target. It's got everything that I personally need. Do they have a Costco up there? No, they don't. They don't have a Costco? Boston's got a Costco. I do not have a Costco. But I'm all right on the Costco. As long as I got Walmart, Taco Bell, and Target, I'll be all right. So it's got all the essentials. Providence Airport's great. It goes direct most places. But if not, Boston's only an hour away as well. I just wanted something peaceful, man. Like this, these last four years have been so aggressive. I'm around people all the time. And we're in the big cities all the time. I'm in LA all the time. I'm in New York all the time. I'm in Miami, Chicago, Vegas, whatever it may be. I'm around people. If I want to see the big city, I'll see it in a couple months. I went somewhere that like when I'm not working, I can just be at peace. And this house is the first place I've ever in 30 years woken up happy every day. Open the window. Just the fields are green. The trees are green. Everything is so peaceful and quiet. People leave me alone. The community is really, really nice. They've been so good to me. We do a lot of local shows. It's the perfect place for me right now. I mean, this is everything. Could you imagine when you were a kid that, you know what? If somebody would have told you, if they had asked you at, say, 15, Matt, where are you going to live? What would you have told them? Oh, man. LA. No, Dayton, probably. Probably Dayton with four kids. That's about it, man. Nobody leaves this place. Right. At 15, the dream was like, maybe I could stay in Ohio. The ultimate dream when I was starting out stand-up was just, because all I ever saw was comedy clubs. Right. So I was like, if I could just sell out comedy clubs every weekend for the rest of my life, that's the opinion. I'm not going to be Dave Chappelle, Dane Cook. I'm not going to do arenas. I don't have to do that. If I make it, cool. So to be able to do what I'm doing now is so far past what I thought I would get to do. It's the most amazing feeling, man. Wow. And I don't know why it happened. I don't know how it happened. The timing of it all happening around my grandpa was so interesting. And I prayed on it a lot. And it really felt like yin and yang, right? Like the good with the bad. It almost felt like I had to lose something so important to me to gain something. I couldn't have it all. So you just kind of adapt to whatever God gives you and be grateful and see what he has in store next. If you could go back and do anything different, let's go back to like 2018. Okay. If you could do anything, you give yourself some advice, would you do anything different? What advice would you give yourself that would be different? Probably would have dropped these dick pics a little bit earlier. Probably. I probably would have. I probably could have been not living paycheck to paycheck in 2018. Probably wouldn't have had the dude Bring the Funny if I would have hopped on OnlyFans as an original content creator. But in comedy, there's not a lot I could have done differently. Because that was around the same time I started to think about putting stuff online. I didn't commit to it yet. But I took the necessary steps. I was touring a little bit. I was getting ready for Bring the Funny. I was really dedicated to developing my set in 2018. So there's not a lot different I could have done. I did as much stand-up as I could. I worked on my set as much as I could. I tried to develop an audience as much as I could. I maybe just would have started on social media. When people started to talk about TikTok before it blew up over COVID. Probably would have, but it's just something that didn't interest me. It's just like having a podcast. You've got to have passion for it. You can't half-ass the work, man this is a full-time job whether people realize it or not it is and at that time i just didn't have i didn't have the commitment for that so maybe i would have changed you still run your social media pages i do i do for a little bit longer not for too much longer but i do for now i just don't trust anybody i still i still edit all my own videos as well i do all the i do all the comedic cuts for it and everything like that i have my my videographer does the captioning and the angle switches right but i mean comedy is about timing right like if you leave too much dead air in a space, the joke might not land the same. So I just don't trust anybody else to do it right now. Right. Is there a joke that you won't tell? Is there anything that you won't say? No, man. There's nothing I wouldn't say. Are you crazy? Given the right context, given the right setup, it's great. Is there anything you feel like a comedian shouldn't say? I mean, I go back, Matt, to be honest, I go back and forth. For me, I look at it like this. If somebody tells me something is offensive and all I need is one person from that group to say that bothers me. OK, I'm cool. Interesting. One person. I had a buddy of mine when I worked at CBS. He was on camera three. His name was Fred Shimizu. I used to call it Ichiro. Ichiro in Japanese means firstborn. OK, but he wasn't the firstborn. His sister was because Ichiro Suzuki, the baseball player. Of course. So that's what I call him. He was Japanese. Ichiro. He loved. He loved Ichiro. Yeah, that's racist. You can't just look around and call somebody the first ethnic name that you know. No, but don't worry about it. He's like, you could be Idi Amin or you could be Johnny Mathis. So we went back and forth. But his sister, which was the oldest, was first born. And she passed. And he came to me and he said, Shannon, I really appreciate it. My sister was first born. Is that you not calling me Ichiro anymore? I said, okay, bro. Fred, how you doing? That's tough. So if somebody in a group says that that's offensive to me, I won't say it anymore. But I'm not a comedian either, though. So thank you for clarifying the context. Right. It's like it's having a job. You go tackle somebody. You go, well, he's a football player. If I go tackle somebody, that's assault. Yeah. It comes with the context of the job. Comedian is a clown. The only thing we're supposed to do up there is make you laugh. Right. And if we can if we can push a perspective like Chappelle is so good. Yes. By all means, do that in a humorous way. But other than that, we don't mean anything we say. You know what I mean? If I were to call somebody Ichiro in the audience and he was like, actually, my sister passed away, I'd be like, thanks for bringing down the moon, man. You know what I mean? Like, you don't got to think it's the funniest thing, but don't ruin it for everybody. I'm just messing with you. I'm not trying to make anything personal. I think it all comes back to context, man. People forget what a comedian is. They think I work at Costco and I'm just out here saying wild shit. Like, no, it's just the job. I'm just playing. You do have a large female audience, a woman's audience. I mean, I guess I'm not supposed to say female. Women's audience. You can't even say female anymore? No, no, no. That's right. So let me, you have a large fan base that are women. Web universes, yes. That are women. What's some of the wildest things? Do they do stuff like at a concert? Like if you were a singer, they'd be throwing stuff on the stage. You mentioned the guy, Matt Rife, is my hall pass. and the husband or boyfriend is sitting right there. Do you ever like, I can't believe this is my life now? Oh, all the time. People will flash at a show from time to time with a bra on stage. Yeah, a girl. People bring gifts all the time. A lady brought me a jar full of her hair. I don't know what part of her it came from. It was pretty long. Just a jar of hair and a photo album of her and her family. Absolutely insane. The first meet and greet I ever did, a lady bit my nipple. What? I give everybody a hug, obviously, and she was about nipple height, latched right on, drew blood. I had to, like, peel her off of me. What? Yeah, people are insane. She had to be drunk, though, Matt. Probably. Probably. She was from Oregon, so it might not even have been a liquid. But people do weird stuff all the time. But, again, I'll take the passion. Yeah. I would rather have super highs and super lows than just kind of, you know, intermediate the entire time. So, basically, right now, you're the Drake of the community world. I don't know. That's a great comparison. All my fans are overage. There you go. See, man. That's not a dig, by the way. I was Team Drake over the beef, just saying. I'm going to go on record right now. I mean, Drake's a great comparison. Drake, if you're watching this, I play Toronto this year if you want to come out. When are you in Atlanta? When are you in Vegas? Atlanta, never. Why you don't come to Atlanta? Man, this is going to get me in even more trouble. You're a real piece of work for doing this, by the way. 3 p.m. Cheers. I thought we was going to sip. I thought we were going to shoot. No. You're not supposed to. Matt, we're not supposed to. I mean, we're like, hey, we're men. Look where we are. We got books. We got books. You know, Cat Williams read all these books. I thought you were so little. No, I mean, this is a conversation. We're having a great conversation. gone. When I come to Rhode Island, I'm like, hey, man, how you doing? We'll sip, I promise. I love what you've done with the place. Yeah, you got me in your study right now. All right. Oops. Well, you're going to have me Orlando Brown in here doing this. This is about to be wild. Not more! No, this is a conversation piece. Okay. What was the question again? I'm so sorry. The women fans. Female fans. yeah we talked about it earlier just it's it's the most passionate man and also it's it's not an easy fan base to get not a lot of comedians have a large female fan base and i take a lot of pride in that yeah like i said i want my comedy to be for as many people as possible if if if you're accepting i'm for you for it well that's also it's so frustrating that's another thing i got that got misconstrued over my very first special tmz caught me outside of my hotel one time and it just a question i wasn't really expecting but they were like uh well you know what what can people kind of expect audience wise from from your next upcoming special and i i used the verbiage uh this one's gonna be a lot more for the guys and when the controversy over that stupid joke uh had come out they thought that's what i meant they thought me doing a joke that was implicative of domestic violence which by the way every comedian has done i'm not the first one right I was the only one being punished for it for some reason. They thought that's what I meant. I was talking about the 15 minutes of come in the middle of the special. There was like a 20-minute section in the middle of the special that was purely about like learning to jerk off as a kid that only guys were going to be able to relate to. That's what I meant. But instead, they took that as like, oh, this special was intended to like eliminate his female audience. No, that's insane. If anything, it was just supposed to find something relatable to some guys that maybe some girls wouldn't get a certain portion of the special. Hopefully they did. Hopefully they found it entertaining. But the women are the ones that push the excitement of your content. They share it the most. They're the most passionate. They're there for you. They genuinely care about you. Something happens to you. You're sick. Your guy fans don't give a f***. No. The women are so motherly about it. I hope you get well soon. they're they're they're the best audience you could possibly ask for i hate that so many of them felt that i was trying to turn my back on them is that is that the situation where you had the bar stool and you said i'm done with bar stool because you know they they had the interview where you know and it kind of kind of pit you against the women your fan base yeah i thought that was super unfair granted i mean i probably could have answered the questions better but like i'm not media trained i remember my publicist asking me when all this happened like do you want to go to media training to learn how to answer questions. I was like, you mean be a robot? That's so inhuman. I just didn't know there's ways to answer questions that are a little more vague and are less often to be misconstrued. So I answered some of those questions, maybe the way that I shouldn't have, but also that's what Barstool does. They want to get you. They want to get clicks. I felt like that was super unfortunate because I was really excited to meet them. I felt like they were doing a good thing at the time yes and um and i wish i wish that had gone better right stay we uh we saw chappelle uh at the hollywood boat somebody ran up on stage were you at that show i was not at that show okay were you there no unfortunately not have anybody ever tried to run up on stage on you it happened in chicago actually damn yeah i know why they gonna run up on stage on you it was so weird like of all for the amount of people who don't like me i expected it at some point in my life. This guy was so positive. It was just a drunk guy. Like he just, he hopped up on stage real quick and was running towards me. And he came from where my videographer is usually set up. So I thought for some reason, sometimes my videographer has to hop on stage. It was at the Chicago theater. So sometimes he has to hop on stage and like sneak by the curtain, replace a battery or whatever. So I didn't think too much of it. I thought it was him getting up. And then I see him running towards me. And by the time I noticed it, he was like two feet away. and there was nothing threatening about it. He was just like, he was so happy and so dry. He was trying to get a hug, but I just kind of got a stiff arm away from him and my security snatched him off pretty much immediately. I didn't really think anything like that was ever going to happen, but ever since that did, I'm so ready to swing. It could be anybody. You want to get one off. It could be anybody at this point, and I'm swinging immediately. They're like, Matt Wright fired on somebody. bro, I'm not taking in facial expressions. I don't care about your tone. I'm swinging immediately. Because a lot of people were like, oh, he didn't even defend himself. First of all, the guy wasn't really a threat. Second, I never thought that would happen. Now that I know it's even maybe possible, we have more security now. I didn't roll up with anybody today because we're in Georgetown. I think I'm probably okay. But, yeah, now I'm a lot more prepared for it. Sometimes I'll hear something happen. We're in the round and I can hear something happen behind me. Every now and then you'll see me just like grip my fist for a second. You just want to fire on somebody just one time. Just one time. Street create going to go way up. You think so? What? You think so? If you fire on somebody? I like my odds. So you're going to get one up and do security tackling? Yeah, man. That's the best part about it. We're going to fight for four seconds before it gets broken up. I'm going to get one in. I know you're close to Dave Chappelle. He said he's giving you great advice. He's seen some of your sets. He take notes, tells you things that you can improve on, things that you're really great at. So, I mean, are you surprised that Dave Chappelle, who's at the apex, says, you know what? He thinks enough of Matt Rife to give him advice to help him even go to a higher level. It's something that's it's hard to fathom, man. Like I would I would consider him a genuine friend. And there's still that air of every time I see him, I'm like, wow. yeah like that's that's the fuck that's the best to ever do what i want to do yeah but he's been so kind to my family and my friends every time he sees me and any of my crew he knows all their names he always says hello asks how their families are doing he he's so invested in in caring about other people and it's it's something i never would have expected obviously but the amount of shows we've gotten to do together i mean the first arena i ever did was i got a chance to open for him at Madison Square Garden for his 50th birthday party. And I'd never performed in an arena at that point in my life. So he's given me so many opportunities. He gave me an opportunity to work out his brand new club, The Firehouse in Yellow Springs. And he hosts that show. And then I headlined it. And then he came back on stage with me afterwards. We riffed for like half an hour. One of the coolest moments of my entire life. He's the only person that has the footage. I don't know if he'll ever see the light of day. Probably not. One of the coolest moments of my entire life. You said he once saved you $750,000. How did he do that? Oh, you saw that? Yeah. Yeah, we were talking about the money I had made from Live Nation for a guarantee for the first part of a tour. It was more money. This is the biggest night in podcasting. The countdown is on to our 2026 iHeart Podcast Awards. Live from South by Southwest March 16th we honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative talented creators in the industry It truly a who who of the podcasting world Creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. And the winner of the iHeart Podcast Award is... See all the nominees now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. Explore the best selection of audio books, podcasts and originals all in one easy app audible there's more to imagine when you listen sign up for a free trial at audible.com i'm daniel jeremiah and i'm greg rosenthal and this is 40s and free agents the games may be over but the nfl never stopped this is my favorite part of the calendar yeah mine too greg free agency the combine the nfl draft pro days trades this is where teams reshape their future this is where Daniel Jeremiah makes his money on 40s and free agents. We break down every move that actually matters. From my draft evaluations, mock drafts, and team fits. To my top 101 free agents and how real rosters are built, cap space, contracts, and all the tough decisions included. You got quarterbacks on the move. We got teams rebuilding. It's hope season. Yeah, absolutely. It's hope season. We'll tell you what's real, what's noise, and what it means for your favorite team. Smart analysis, real conversations every week. I don't know about the smart, but definitely analysis. Listen to 40s and Free Agents on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I had never even heard of in my entire life. And he was asking if I had a good team and a good lawyer and everything. And he was like, is your lawyer, is he 5% or is he hourly? And I was like, hey, he's 5% like most lawyers. And he was like, nah, I got a guy here who will do it hourly, who does all my shit for me. So in doing so, saved me like close to a million dollars. Wow. Yeah. Which, that's not my long-term lawyer, unfortunately. Most lawyers won't work for that. Right. Like, don't search out an hourly lawyer for everything that you do. Oftentimes, you'll get what you pay for. Right. But if DejaPelle vouches for them, I'm going to trust them. It's a lot of weird indiscrepancies in the budgeting of your team, right? It's like agents get 10%. Your manager gets 10%. Your lawyer gets 5%. Your business manager gets 5%. So when you hear somebody makes like a million dollars, you don't get a million dollars. No. You get maybe by 250, something like that. By the time Uncle Sam gets his 50 percent, and then everybody, c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c. It's not what you think. No. Which breaks your heart, man. You see the check you get, and you're like, what? And they go, well. Out of a million? That's all I got? Mm-hmm. But you try not to be ungrateful, right? You're like, listen, it's still more than I ever imagined. It's more than I ever thought I'd make in my life that I'm making for a weekend, right? But it is weird having to break it up into so many different pieces. You realize now as you've gotten to this level here, everything that you say, they dissect it. So if you say something about this comedian, man, you heard what Matt Reif said. If you say something about this person, you heard what Matt Reif said. Do you find yourself have to be overly cautious, overly guarded about things you say, knowing that everything that you say is going to be dissected? Oh, of course, man. You don't think my publicist is like, be careful on Shannon's podcast. Be careful what you say. Everything lives forever now. Yeah, people definitely, I feel like people definitely look to misconstrue what you say now. And obviously anything negative spreads faster than anything positive. Absolutely. But I mean, it helps that I don't have anything negative to say about anybody, really. Maybe a couple people in my personal life. But honestly, those people don't deserve the press that I would give them by talking about them. But as far as my peers and comedians and everything, I don't have anything negative to say about anybody. There's 8 billion people in the world. Yeah. If I have a few million fans and for some reason that pisses you off that I get to be successful and find my fan base, there's seven and a half billion other people you're allowed to go make fan of for yourself. I wish the best for everybody. I don't have a single bad thing to say about literally anybody. But how did it make you feel? Because a lot of times, like I said, the level of success that you've enjoyed, there are a lot of older comedians that have been at this a lot longer than you have that haven't been able to enjoy that level of success. And because and for whatever reason, that's not your fault that they haven't enjoyed the level of success that you have. But when they say like, bro, I mean, you I'm a fan of yours. And I had I been in the situation, I would never say anything negative about you. Yeah, it definitely happens. But I'm not in their shoes. You know, I mean, I don't know the decisions that they made. I don't know the decisions that they didn't make to get where they're at right now. But I know a lot of them refuse to adapt. Like talk about social media a lot. It's that's what changed my life. You got to be able to do it now. I grew up starting stand up with those comedians, right? The ones who are they're living off of doing morning radio in the city. They're performing that night where like social media is not an important thing to that generation when I started out. So for me, it's it's something for my generation. Yeah. 30 and under social media is their whole life. I should love it. I should embrace it. Just not really what I grew up on. It's not what I really respect. It's not what I have a passion for. But a lot of these comedians just won't adapt. They won't do the clips. They won't do the social media marketing. They won't they won't brand themselves on social media and try to really grasp the fan base. So, again, I don't know the decisions they made or didn't make to get where they're at, but I understand it. I mean, I've I've been bitter. I've been jealous. I used to be a hater for sure. That's why I understand it now. There's be comics that I would hate on for sure. And then when I got like, I don't know how he's. Oh, of course. It happens for everybody. It happens for literally everybody. If you say you've never been jealous of somebody, you're a liar. And that makes you very insecure for not admitting it. It happens. You can envy affects everybody at some point in their life. But then when I got where I'm at now and started to see what comes with it, I had such an understanding. I went, wow, I know what it takes to get there. And I know what you deal with because you're in the spot right now. Gave me such a respect for it. Now I wish the best for everybody. Right. But these comedy beefs. When you got into comedy, did you know anything about comedy beasts? No, it's so weird. It's so f***ing high school. Why do you care? Oh, I'm funnier than so-and-so. Okay. Are they more successful than you? Then statistically, I guess not. Go prove it. Numbers are the only thing that matter, right? Unfortunately. Statistically, it's the only thing you can say. Opinions are going to vary. And it's not something you can prove. There's so many funnier comedians, in my personal opinion, than I am, that have significantly less followers, sell less tickets. Right. There's so much more that goes into that. Yes. The beef aspect makes no sense. Why does it affect you? What is hating on this person going to do for your career? If anything, you kind of look weak for trying to tear somebody down. You should be lifting each other. Go on tour together. If both of y'all are selling out clubs together and there's a weird beef there, how about y'all combine a fan base and now go do a bigger thing? You do 5,000. He does 5,000. So guess what? Now that's a 10,000. Now you can go do an arena together. Yeah. It makes no sense. Ego gets involved. Insecurity gets involved. It's very unfortunate. I haven't really had any. Thank God. There's nobody I have beef with. I don't know. There's plenty of people that don't like me, but I mean, it hasn't really affected me. And I haven't really been stuck in the middle of anything. Have you heard anything? No. Even my daughter, I told my daughter, I talked to my daughter on Friday and she's like, what you doing? I said, well, I'm getting ready. I'm packing because I'm getting ready to go to I'm going to D.C. She's like, well, who are you doing? I said, Matt Wright. She's like, really? You know him, Dad? How old is your daughter? She'll be 34. She's 33. For real? Yeah. What does she do? She's in HR at Northside Hospital. Oh, that sounds like stress. No, thank you. Tell her I said hello. I sure will. I'm going to FaceTime as soon as I get out of here. As a matter of fact, let's FaceTime once we get done. I would love to. 30 years of age. You've accomplished so much in your first 30 years. what can we expect from Matt Reif in the next 30? Oh man I don't know I think about that every day you know like I said I'd like to make the transition over to more acting I love movies I love I love watching movies I love making the few that I've done I've got one with Owen Wilson that's going to come out later this year which was crazy I mean talk about one of the greatest of all time he's an absolute legend I hope to transition more into that and maybe I'll end up doing less stand-up as that time goes on, or maybe I'll find, maybe I'll be able to find the balance, but I know I can't tour like I'm touring right now for the rest of my life. A piece of advice Chappelle gave me is like, you got to live your life. Material comes from living your life. You got to go experience things. You can't just live on the road. What are you going to talk about, being on the road all the time? It's not relatable. People don't know about the tour bus and the behind the scenes and all that. Some funny stories can happen, but you got to go out there and you got to live your life and i live on this beautiful place in rhode island now i want to i want to explore the world with my friends make memories and everything so you ain't mentioned about no wife no kids you ain't mentioned nothing we've been talking for an hour for 90 minutes and you ain't mentioned none of that we'll see what happens somebody to share that with no man i just want somebody i can go on live with you know what i mean there you go change the trajectory of my career you know I'm sure there's some people out there that let you go live with them bro you didn't know I didn't know man bro I still don't they called me I was wondering why everybody was calling me I just hit decline decline decline Jordan my guy here is like hey boss you know I said know what I said how did anybody see anything they said no they couldn't see anything but they can hear everything i was like yeah man i never growled until i saw you and i was like i was like oh this is what i'm doing wrong got it he said all right all right i appreciate the pointers but we'll see we'll see you know i mean maybe maybe a wife and kids is in the picture i i hope it is but it's also gotta be timing right yes right now i live a very selfish lifestyle let's say i'm on tour my work is my life is your wife and when i did that yeah i'm married to work right now and eventually i really pray somebody you know could be a part of that i could share all of this with them but it's got to be the right time i don't want to be a half-assed boyfriend i want to be a half-assed husband i want to be supportive from when you started to now is comedy harder then or is it harder now i think comedy gets harder every year that goes by i think social media doesn't make that easier for sure with meme culture and all that like jokes jokes are all over social media all the time. I'll think of a joke one day, I'll see it as a meme the next day. And I go, well, thank God I didn't say that on stage. Or I could be doing one on stage. And then somebody makes a meme of it. And I go, I've been doing that joke for a year. Now I can't do this. People are going to think I stole it from the internet. I think it gets harder and harder as time goes on. More and more comedy happens. People put out more specials. There's more people starting comedy. There's more perspectives being in the game. I do think, this is going to get clipped out of context, but I think comedy was easier in the 70s, 80s, 90s, just because nothing had been done yet. nothing but women be shopping was a crazy concept in the 80s and 90s right nothing had been talked about all things and nobody got canceled for selling a joke nobody got canceled at all which i think people are getting less and less scared i do right and i do too i do too unless unless it comes down to some kind of malicious intent and you could tell this person really means the thing they're saying right now you can't cancel a comedian our power lies entirely in the hands of our fans. Right. As long as people, look at people who got canceled. Let's talk about a Louis C.K. Yeah. Or a Chris D'Elia, whoever it may be. They still sell out theaters, by the way. And they got canceled. They had shit taken from them professionally. Their fans still sell out tickets. So therefore, are they really canceled? No. No. What does the word canceled even mean? You're in trouble in the eye of the public? What does that do? Right. You know what? The heart to a girl say you are celebrity crush. she said you tried to get at you Hayley Welch yeah I met her on you met her? well yes I did I met her first on FaceTime Whitney Cummings FaceTimed her on her podcast she was very sweet I said I was a celebrity crush or something and then I was performing in Nashville at Bridgestone Arena which was my first real sized arena that I ever did in Nashville I love Nashville I think I'm back there in October yeah Nashville nice I love Nashville thought about moving there yeah I thought I'd love moving there too but there's no land within the city i wanted some no you got to be out you got to go out but if you live an hour outside of nashville you really live in nashville or you you in memphis memphis you know i mean chattanooga yeah for sure for sure so then i invited her to that show she came out and i do these like kind of like behind stage walkouts like almost i don't know if you've ever seen any morgan wallen shows where like the camera kind of follows them on the jumbotron right from backstage out to the stage we do a similar thing right and for this one i rode a horse in on at the very beginning of it and then i got off the horse and i walked over the camera panned over to her and she like hawked to it into my spit in my hands and then i walked up to the stage you are you wow you're wild for that one matt she was she was so down for it she was very nice she uh and then she got in trouble for that uh that crypto shit yeah poor girl yeah i know people got mad at her but i'm like and i mean as respectfully as possible you really think she had anything to do with that you think she knows anything about crypto you think she was like i can't wait to people over no somebody came to her and was like i have an idea how you can make a bunch of money quick they up yeah she got in trouble for it it's a problem with immediate fame man man you know what bro thanks for coming on club shake is there anything that you want to promote um not just come out and see the show this year man i think you'll really enjoy yourself it's very it's very different it's untraditional and i think uh i think you'll really enjoy it and if you don't get to check out the show watch a special watch uh watch a tv show or a movie i'm coming out later this year. And thanks for the support. I appreciate it. How close are you to Vegas? Vegas? What, a five-hour flight? Something like that? No, I'm saying, how close are you coming to Vegas to do a show? I got Laughlin in May, which is what, an hour outside? Something like that? Nevada? Yeah, some casino. How do you go to Laughlin and not Las Vegas? Okay. Makes sense to me. Yeah, well, we did Vegas laughter. We did the MGM arena, I believe it was. So we got to take a little bit of a break. You can't exhaust it. But I love Vegas, man. You live in Vegas? I do. What? Yeah, I thought about it was Vegas, Nashville, Houston, Dallas, Austin. Houston. White people's Atlanta. No, Houston is the devil's playground. Houston is ratchet. Yeah, bro. I mean, Vegas is scary. Do you gamble? I don't. Not at all? Not at all. Really? Not on sports or nothing? Not on anything. Interesting. I feel like you have to say it. I'm going to ask you again off camera. No, I don't gamble. No, hell no. I don't know how you do. I can't go to Vegas and not lose my whole check. It's so frustrating. So check this out. He has tour dates coming to U.S. and Europe. He has a film with Owen Wilson, Rolling Loud, Dropping in September, and limited series with Netflix with Julia Gardner called The Altruist coming out later this year. Ladies and gentlemen, Matt Reif. Thank you. Bro, appreciate you. Appreciate you, man. Oh, man, this was awesome. Thank you to the Lenox Bar for hosting Club Shay Shay and letting us record in their incredible space. We truly appreciate the hospitality and support. If you're ever in the Washington, D.C. area, do yourself a favor and stop by Lanix Bar. Great vibes, great drinks, and an even better atmosphere. Make sure you follow Lanix DC Bar on Instagram. This is the biggest night in podcasting. The countdown is on to our 2026 iHeart Podcast Awards. Live from South by Southwest, March 16th, we'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative, talented creators in the industry. It's truly a who's who of the podcasting world. creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. And the winner of the iHeart Podcast Award is... See all the nominees now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals all in one easy app, Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial at audible.com.