Comedian Matt Rife canceled a number of shows Wednesday at the University of Indiana due to a 'medical emergency.'
Matt Rife was forced to a cancel a number of his shows Thursday due to a "last minute medical emergency."
The stand-up comedian issued an apology on his Instagram Story saying that canceling his shows is very much unlike him, but it's something he needed to do. Rife did not disclose the medical emergency, but he shared some details about his busy road schedule.
"I'm so f**king sorry, but due to a last minute medical emergency i have to reschedule our shows tonight (again)," the comedian shared in a statement. "I've been doing 40+ shows a month for a year and a half and never had to do something like this, I'm so sorry, i hope you understand and i love you so much."
Rife was slated to perform a number of shows in Bloomington, Indiana, at the University of Indiana's IU Auditorium. The venue also issued a statement citing the same reason and offered a full refund.
It's unclear if Rife will continue on his tour as scheduled. He's slated to perform Thursday night at the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, with shows running until Sunday. His tour then takes him to Tennessee, where he's scheduled to perform from June 6 to June 13 in Nashville, Memphis and Knoxville.
The cancellations come six months after Rife mocked criticism in the wake of his debut Netflix special, Natural Selection, which generated backlash following his jokes about domestic violence.
The joke in question came toward the beginning of his set, in which he told a story about being in a restaurant in Baltimore and was greeted by a hostess who had a black eye.
"I've only been to Baltimore one time. I ate lunch there, and the hostess who, like, seats you at the restaurant had a black eye. A full black eye. And it wasn’t like, 'What happened?' It was pretty obvious what happened," Rife says in the special. "We couldn't get over the fact. We're like, 'This is the face of the company? This is who you have greeting people?'"
"My boy who I was with was like, 'Yeah, I feel bad for her. I feel like they should put her in the kitchen or something where nobody has to see her face, ya know?' And I was like, 'Yeah, but I feel like if she could cook, she wouldn’t have that black eye,'" Rife jokes, to the laughter of his Washington, D.C., audience.
Rife then downplays the joke, explaining to the audience that he was "just testing the waters, seeing if y'all are gonna be fun or not."
He added, "I figure we start the show with domestic violence, then the rest of the show should be pretty smooth sailing after that."
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