Whoopi Goldberg Surprises Matt Rife With Bold Take on Comedians Being ‘Under Attack’

Thanks to the internet, comedians are bigger than ever. It’s difficult to scroll on any social media platform without finding someone making a joke. However, success can lead to controversy, as seen with Matt Rife. Well, the comedian just found out he has a pretty famous supporter, Whoopi Goldberg.

Rife’s career has been far from traditional. He started doing stand-up comedy as a teenager and used that to launch a career in the entertainment space, appearing in shows like Fresh Off the Boat and Wild ‘n Out. But Rife didn’t become a household name until he started posting clips from his routines on TikTok. His crowd work, in particular, helped him stand out from other comedians.

Things were going very well for Rife until his 2023 Netflix special, Natural Selection, dropped, and the first joke made light of domestic violence. “My boy who I was with was like, ‘Yeah, I feel bad for her, man, I feel like they should put her in the kitchen or something where nobody has to see her face.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, but I feel like if she could cook, she wouldn’t have that black eye,'” he joked.

At the time, there was a perception that Rife had a much bigger female audience than male, and the joke at the top of his special was a way for him to make it clear that he wasn’t going to pull any punches. Naturally, a large portion of the internet was enraged by the joke, with many calling for the comedian to be “canceled.”

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In 2024, Rife came to his own defense during an interview with the New Yorker, claiming that he was trying to let everyone in his audience know that they were more than their insecurities. “Whether it’s depression or a physical disability, not everyone wants to be seen as a victim,” he said. “Sometimes people need to laugh to heal through the things that make them uncomfortable.”

Now, with a book on the way, Rife is once again tackling the subject head-on, appearing on The View and having an open discussion about the “attack” on comedians. He mentioned that there is a fine line between being yourself and “pandering to a community that might not even care about you in the first place.”

This caught the attention of Goldberg, who came up as a comedian. “Your work is wonderful,” she told Rife. “And it’s great to watch because, you know, people do feel like they can come up and say anything to you or spit at you or take a swing. And comics are always under fire; this is just different because even the worst of the people have had some sort of sense of self-awareness. Not so much these days.”

Goldberg’s comments led Rife to take aim at all the detractors online who feel like they can say anything they want without consequences. “It’s weird that people feel the need to express the negativity because it’s only on the internet that that happens,” he said. “Nobody has ever said anything to my face.”

It’s obvious by his comments that Rife’s brand of comedy isn’t going to change despite all the hate online, and Goldberg likes that, feeling a sense of hope for the young generation of comics that are on the rise.