In late 2023, it was seemingly impossible to escape the topic of Matt Rife online. A lot of that chatter was about the comedian’s Netflix special Natural Selection, which opens with a sexist joke about domestic violence. In response to that backlash, Rife issued a mock apology on his Instagram story with a link to buy protective helmets designed for people with special needs, which obviously sparked more backlash. I didn’t hear about him very much for a while after that, but now he’s inescapable again — at least to Billy Idol in a new video sketch promoting his upcoming tour with Joan Jett.
The clip features Idol in a series of scenarios in which he keeps encountering Rife everywhere he goes, and Rife’s character(s) can’t stop referencing Idol’s songs when he speaks. Joan Jett briefly appears as Idol’s therapist when he tries to talk about this issue plaguing him, but then Rife becomes the shrink, too.
