MCU’s Kang the Conqueror Jonathan Majors was arrested early last year on domestic violence and assault charges and was recently found guilty of the charges. The actor was at the peak of his fame as he was set up as the main antagonist in Marvel’s upcoming cinematic event films Avengers: Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars.
While Majors has been officially dropped by Marvel after his conviction, other stars who were marred by controversy last year did not face such a huge backlash. One among them was the comedian Matt Rife, who was embroiled in a controversy last year after he opened his Netflix comedy special with a joke on domestic violence.
What Were Matt Rife’s Controversial Remarks?
After self-producing three comedy specials, stand-up comic Matt Rife finally got his big break when he released his Netflix special Natural Selection. While the comedian had over 18 million followers on TikTok, his fame came in jeopardy when he made a controversial joke at the beginning of his Netflix special.
Rife’s joke spoke about how he visited a restaurant in Baltimore where he and his friend saw a waitress with a black eye. He went on to say that they wondered why the restaurant would not just put her on kitchen duty so that the customers would not be able to see it. He then joked, “Yeah, but I feel like if she could cook, she wouldn’t have that black eye.”
Matt Ride got into a pickle because of this joke as many fired back at him for being insensitive to domestic abuse. In response, Rife irked them again when he took to Instagram to post a story that had a link to his ‘apology’. According to Variety, Matt Rife’s ‘apology’ linked to a website that sold helmets for people with special needs. This added more fuel to the fire.
Matt Rife also came under fire for his remarks against a six-year-old kid. The kid’s mother, TikToker Bunny Hedaya claimed that her son had commented on one of Rife’s jokes, to which he had told the child that his Christmas presents were bought from his mother’s ‘OnlyFans profits’. This irked fans even more and they criticized him for starting beef with a six-year-old.
Why Didn’t Matt Rife Get The Jonathan Majors Treatment?
While Matt Rife’s antics on and off screen have been controversial and his jokes on domestic abuse came from a long line of comedians coming under fire for their inappropriate jokes, he still was not convicted like Jonathan Majors. The Marvel star was arrested early last year when he was accused of assault and harassment by his former girlfriend, and he was later found guilty of those charges.
Jonathan Majors’ place in the MCU was on shaky ground immediately, but Marvel did not jump the gun and fire him before a trial (unlike WB did with Johnny Depp). However, the studio did plan on a contingency in case things did not go Jonathan Majors’ way. They reportedly planned to pivot to either introducing Doctor Doom as the main antagonist or developing more Mutant-based films.
With Jonathan Majors’ conviction, a spokesperson for Marvel stated that the studio would be dropping the actor from its cast. He was already dropped by his management and PR agencies and films that he was supposed to be a part of have been put on the backburner. Matt Rife on the other hand still maintains his 18 million following on TikTok and his special is still on Netflix.
