E.L.F. Cosmetics Has Already Apologized for Featuring Matt Rife in a Beauty Campaign

Matt Rife has a lot of female fans that fill his sold-out Madison Square Garden shows, but for every woman that likes him, there’s about five who hate him. That’s not the worst ratio, so that’s perhaps why Rife was offered to be one of the new faces of E.L.F. Cosmetics, a drug store beauty brand that specializes in low-priced makeup. 

Because of the general quality and affordability of the products, they tend to be a go-to buy for most makeup wearers. Their grip primer is a cult beauty product used by everyone from drag queens to 15-year-old teenage girls to influencers with more than 10 million followers. Compared to more high-end brands like Charlotte Tilbury and Tarte, which offer products in the $30 to $60 range, most E.L.F. products can be found for $15 or less. 

This price point was the genesis for the company’s latest beauty campaign, starring Matt Rife and Heidi N Closet, a popular drag artist. The two played e.l.f.ino & schmarnes: Affordable Beauty Attorneys. The one-minute commercial was a callback to Cellino and Barnes personal injury lawyer commercials and was filled with quips like, “Find out what your case and face are really worth.”

It would have been a cute idea, if not for the widespread hatred of Rife. The comment section for the ad on YouTube and Instagram are filled with tens of thousands of statements like:

• “You didn’t have the budget for a comedian who doesn’t joke about abuse?”
• “I thought you guys were cruelty free?”
• “I think Andrew Tate is available for the next ad?”
• “Ooh Matt Rife? The guy who jokes about DV? In an ad targeted to women? That’s um. A choice.”
• “Look. Heidi N Closet could have sold this all on their own. Don't need no Rife.”
• “Ew, the guy who makes fun of DV victims and children. Time to boycott.”
• “Literally any other guy could have done this, Matt Rife sucks.”

That’s just a very small sampling of the fury, too. On Twitter, thousand of tweets read like this one:

For those wondering, what did Rife do? Do wearers of E.L.F. makeup just really hate men that much? 

The answer is no they don’t hate all men; a lot of women specifically hate Rife because of a domestic violence joke he made during his first big stand-up special for Netflix in 2023. It went like this: Rife is out to eat with a friend, and the pair notices the hostess has a black eye. The friend wonders why she’s not working in the kitchen, so that customers wouldn’t see her injury. Rife’s punchline to this set-up is: “Yeah, but I feel like if she could cook, she wouldn’t have that black eye.”

Domestic violence advocates weren’t pleased, a lot of women weren’t pleased, people who like smart comedy weren’t pleased. He wasn’t really worried about it though, and after a few months of refusing to apologize but emphasizing he values his female fanbase, Rife continued to sell out shows and generally remain unaffected by the joke —  until this E.L.F. ad. 

While the company hasn’t taken the post down, they did issue a (kind of weird) statement addressing the abundant social media hate. It reads: “You know us, we’re always listening and we’ve heard you. This campaign aimed to humorously spotlight beauty injustice. We understand we’ve missed the mark with people we care about in the E.L.F. community. While e.l.f.ino & schmarnes closes today, we’ll continue to make the case against overpriced beauty. 

The backlash shocked E.L.F. who either wasn’t aware of Rife’s controversy or were thinking no one really cared anymore. The data indicated women love Rife: On TikTok, Rife’s audience is 80 percent female and 75 percent of them are under the age of 34, with ample positive engagement. To this data I say: Not all women! There are still a few who aren’t blindly charmed by handsome faces and fame — the Johnny Depp/Matt Rife corner of the internet isn’t a large enough market share for mass advertising. 

“We’re very surprised,” Kory Marchisotto, E.L.F. Beauty’s global chief marketing officer, told Business of Fashion. “There is a big gap between our intention and how this missed the mark for some people.”

The Instagram apology didn’t seem to assuage too many people. Just a few of those thousands of comments:

• “‘Missed the mark’ is a pretty loose way of saying ‘we intentionally alienated our audience by hiring a man who torpedoed his career by alienating his audience.’”
• “1 in 4 women experience DV in their lifetime. Your consumer base is majorly women. Put your money where your mouth is and donate to DV organizations bc we’re not forgetting this one.”
• “Are you seriously trying to add humour to your apology? Take down the original ads from all platforms. How tone deaf can you be?”
• “I’m failing to understand how this was approved in the first place.”

E.L.F. definitely had a few more ads in the bank as part of this campaign, which I imagine will never make it off the hard drive. I’m sure we’re a few hours away from a glib statement from Rife about this, and he’s probably already cashed his check. But maybe such a debacle will mean I won’t have to suffer the indignity of Rife trying to sell me underwear or nail polish in the near future. 

As for the surprise this must be to Rife and E.L.F., maybe it’s Annabelle’s first curse.