Matt Rife
Matt Rife

Comedian Matt Rife sat down with Fox News co-host Steve Doocy at his latest tour stop to discuss how viral TikTok clips transformed his comedy career, the role of faith in his life and what it is like to perform for massive crowds, according to Fox News' description of the segment.

Fox News said Doocy "catches up" with Rife on the road to talk about his comedy career, his viral success on TikTok, his faith and his rise to fame. The network's summary is the only detailed account of the interview available at the time of writing, and no transcript or direct quotes from Rife were published with it, so this report does not attribute any specific remarks to him. What follows is context on the tour and career that frame the conversation.

Doocy has spent much of the past year on the road. He joined Fox News in 1996 as a weather reporter and has co-hosted "Fox & Friends" since 1998, and he now works as a "coast-to-coast" co-host, bringing viewers stories from cities and towns across the country, according to his Fox News biography. Earlier this year, he toured Lakewood Church in Houston for a segment on renewed interest in Christianity among young Americans.

Rife, 31, was born in Urbana, Ohio, and started performing as a teenager. His first break came on MTV's "Wild 'n Out" in 2015, and after several years on other MTV shows he self-released his first comedy special, "Only Fans," in 2021, according to reports on his career. Appearances on sitcoms including "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" and "Fresh Off the Boat" followed, and his first Netflix special, "Natural Selection," arrived in November 2023. A second Netflix special, "Unwrapped: A Christmas Crowd Work Special," premiered globally on December 2, 2025.

Social media was the turning point. The New York Times described him in 2022 as "just another struggling road comedian" who then grew far more popular through TikTok over the following year, according to his biography. He signed with Creative Artists Agency in December 2022. His career took off after he began posting clips from his stand-up shows on TikTok, according to a ticketing site's profile of the comedian, and his crowd work, in which he riffs with audience members, became a signature of those clips. Forbes ranked him seventh on its list of top-earning creators in June 2025, with estimated earnings of $50 million.

The scale of the live business is now considerable. Rife's ProbleMATTic World Tour sold more than 600,000 tickets across more than 250 shows in less than 48 hours after it was announced, according to AY Magazine. His Stay Golden tour, which began in 2025, included two sold-out nights at New York's Madison Square Garden, making him the youngest comedian to sell out the venue, according to a FOX5 report. He has also set venue records across the country on the tour, including the most single-event tickets ever sold at Columbus' Nationwide Arena and Seattle's Climate Pledge Arena, the all-time ticket sales record at Manchester's SNHU Arena, and the paid seat record at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The tour has since grown into a world tour. Rife announced more than 40 new dates for 2026 across North America, Europe and the United Kingdom, joining previously announced shows in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Canada that will keep him on the road for nine of the 12 months this year, according to a report on the Fort Worth date. The 2026 leg introduces a 360-degree, in-the-round stage design intended to give fans a more immersive experience, the venue listings said.

Several upcoming stops are already scheduled. Rife plays Milwaukee's Fiserv Forum on November 7, Las Vegas' Dolby Live at Park MGM on December 4 at 8 p.m., and Fort Worth's Dickies Arena on December 12, according to venue and news listings. A show at the Walmart AMP in Rogers, Arkansas, that was postponed from September 2025 was rescheduled for September 27, 2026, according to KNWA. It was not clear from the Fox News description which stop Doocy attended.