Beauty company E.l.f. Cosmetics responded to backlash this week over its new ad campaign starring comedian Matt Rife, who was criticized for making a joke about domestic violence in his 2023 comedy special.
“You know us, we’re always listening and we’ve heard you,” the brand wrote on Instagram on Wednesday. “This campaign aimed to humorously spotlight beauty injustice. We understand we missed the mark with people we care about in our e.l.f. community.”
The commercial in question features Rife and drag queen Heidi N Closet playing “beauty attorneys” who want to protect their clients from overpriced beauty products from other brands. The ad was posted on social media on Aug. 11, and the comments section was quickly flooded with questions about why the company would associate with Rife.
The ad was still up on E.l.f.’s official Instagram page as of Thursday. Rife has not commented on the backlash but wrote “Had a great time ❤️❤️” on E.l.f.’s post responding to the criticism. E.l.f. Beauty, the parent company of E.l.f. Cosmetics, did not respond to Yahoo’s request for comment.
“We’re very surprised,” Kory Marchisotto, E.l.f. Beauty’s global chief marketing officer, told Business of Fashion about the negative response to the ad. “There is a big gap between our intention and how this missed the mark for some people.”
Marchisotto said that Rife was cast in the E.l.f. ad because of his TikTok following, which, she said, is 80% female and 75% under the age of 34. Rife’s social media following showed strong, positive engagement, Marchisotto added, which factored into the casting decision. (Rife posted the E.l.f. ad on his own Instagram on Tuesday and received many supportive comments from fans.)
“We always aim to deliver positivity, and this one didn’t,” Marchisotto told Business of Fashion. “So we find ourselves in a position where, quite honestly, that doesn’t feel good for us.”
Rife and Heidi N Closet reenact early 2000s law commercials in the E.l.f. Comestics ad. (E.l.f. Cosmetics via Instagram)
Rife has been a stand-up comedian for over a decade and made headlines in November 2023 over his Netflix special Natural Selection. In one of the first jokes of the special, he suggests that a waitress with a black eye must not work in the restaurant’s kitchen because “if she could cook, she wouldn’t have that black eye.”
“I figure we start the show with domestic violence, the rest of the show should be pretty smooth sailing after that,” Rife says after the joke.
Many slammed the joke online and criticized Rife for using a platform as big as Netflix to make light of domestic violence against women.
In response to the Natural Selection controversy, Rife wrote in an Instagram Story, “If you’ve ever been offended by a joke I’ve told — here’s a link to my official apology.” The link led to a website that sold medical helmets for people with special needs, NBC News reported at the time.
Most of E.l.f.’s ads from the last few years have aimed to be as culturally and topically relevant as possible, from casting Jennifer Coolidge at the height of her White Lotus popularity in the brand’s first Super Bowl commercial in 2023 to partnering with activist and astronaut Amanda Nguyen for Blue Origin’s first all-female spaceflight. In May, the company acquired Hailey Bieber’s Rhode skin care brand in a $1 billion deal.
