Matt Rife Says Marc Maron Is Just Mad That ‘I Get to Live His Dreams’

Well, at least you can’t say Matt Rife started this one.

Two years ago, Marc Maron was moderating a discussion about Kliph Nestoroff’s comedy history Outrageous when, in response to an audience member’s question, he held up Rife as everything wrong with modern stand-up. Rife is “the new It Boy of shitty comedy,” Maron declared. “And he’s taking a big chance in his career right now to shit on the mostly female audience that he accumulated through social media to kiss up to these pseudo edge lords.” (The comments came fresh on the heels of Rife’s Netflix special, Natural Selection, in which he told domestic violence jokes and then recommended special-needs helmets to anyone he offended.) 

Two years later, Rife is telling Billboard he has no beef with Maron before revealing just how deep those cuts really were. After all, Rife once looked up to the older comic. “You’re kind of being a dick to somebody who might have looked up to you,” Rife said as if Maron were in the room. “I used to love to watch Marc Maron stand-up.”

Sounds like those days are over. Rife passive-aggressively dismissed Maron as “just being a crotchety old man, and I’ve never even met the guy. I guarantee he’s never watched one of my shows, so if he wants to be bitter and angry that I get to live his dreams…”

Despite the insults, it’s all love, explained Rife. “I don’t have a beef with a single comedian,” he insisted. “I am living my life, dude. What do I possibly have to complain about? I don’t hate on anybody. I don’t talk shit about anybody.”

Rife doesn’t talk shit about anybody? Isn’t talking shit the whole deal with his crowdwork comedy? 

Rife doesn’t talk shit about anybody? What does he call the special-needs helmet crack?

Rife doesn’t talk shit about anybody? What about the six-year-old kid who made a TikTok calling out the comic for being mean to girls? “Santa isn’t real. Your mom buys you presents with the money she makes on OnlyFans. Good luck,” Rife fired back.

Don’t forget either that Rife threatened his online critics with high-octane shit-talking in his Natural Selection special. “I have a very quick trigger reaction to feel the need to defend myself if I feel like somebody is coming at me,” Rife warned. “And I go for the kill every time. So look, you can talk your shit to me online as much as you want, say whatever mean, hurtful things you wanna say to try to hurt my feelings but just know, I’m going to fuck you up verbally, dude.”

And now Rife is calling Maron “bitter and angry” because he thinks Rife is a lousy comic. “I mind my own business and anybody who has a problem with that, it’s clearly an internal battle,” Rife told Billboard. 

An internal battle until Rife gets his feathers ruffled and decides to make it a public pissing match.