Matt Rife

Stand-up comedian Matt Rife had been performing in small clubs for nearly a decade, but one viral clip on TikTok changed the trajectory of his career. He now has nearly 17 million followers on the social platform and earned an estimated $25 million in the year ending in June 2023. His boundary-pushing jokes crossed a line for some fans, though, when he debuted his newest special on Netflix in November: In the special, Rife includes a joke about domestic violence, and he exacerbated the backlash with an unrepentant Instagram post.