E.l.f Cosmetics is facing a public relations disaster this week after featuring controversial comedian Matt Rife as the face of their latest campaign. Despite issuing what can only be described as a pathetic statement about the backlash, the company is still copping heat from consumers.
On August 10, the cosmetics company launched a campaign with Rife, along with RuPaul’s Drag Race star Heidi N Closet. The pair featured as “affordable beauty attorneys” at a law firm called “e.l.fino & Schmarnes” (which is a play on a famous New York personal-injury law firm called Cellino & Barnes), who are fighting against “overpriced makeup products”.
“I know a thing or two about red flags. And pricey makeup? You deserve better than that,” Rife says in the campaign.
Customers — including Australian beauty creator Jillie Clark — were quick to note that Rife was an interesting (and straight-up offensive) choice for a makeup ad.
You see, although Rife built a predominantly female audience on TikTok during the pandemic, he shocked fans with the release of his comedy special entitled Natural Selection, which included a series of jokes about domestic violence.
In a time where domestic violence is a widespread epidemic, the joke did not hit. To make matters worse, he doubled down on his jokes with a fake apology.
“If you’ve ever been offended by a joke I’ve told, here’s a link to my official apology,” he wrote on Instagram in November 2023. Instead of linking out to an apology, it was a link to a website which sold special needs helmets. Pretty fucking awful, hey?
So, when Clark came across the campaign, she decided to use her platform to speak up — even though she’d worked with E.l.f Cosmetics before.
“This video is probably not going to be very good for business, but you know what’s also not good for business? Choosing to have the face of your campaign, someone who openly jokes about violence against women,” she said.
“I don’t think that as a multi-billion dollar business in the beauty industry with a customer base that is 90 per cent women, we should have the face of our campaign be a man who openly jokes about violence against women.
“Did nobody sit there and say, ‘Hey, in 2025, when there is an absolute epidemic of violence against women, let’s not choose to have the face of our campaign be a man who jokes about domestic violence?'”
You can check out her video below.
Clark’s video gained traction pretty quickly, picking up more than 6.8 million views in just two days. She also sparked a conversation that became so big that E.l.f Cosmetics responded days later in a statement across socials.
“You know us, we’re always listening and we’ve heard you,” the statement began.
“This campaign aimed to humorously spotlight beauty and justice. We understand we missed the mark with people we care about in our E.l.f. Community. While e.l.f.ino & schmarnes closes today, we’ll continue to make the case against overpriced beauty.”
E.l.f Cosmetics Global Chief Marketing Officer Kory Marchisotto also spoke publicly about the backlash.
“There is a big gap between our intention and how this missed the mark for some people,” Marchisotto told The Business of Beauty.
“We always aim to deliver positivity, and this one didn’t. So we find ourselves in a position where, quite honestly, that doesn’t feel good for us.”
Despite the statements — which conveniently lack an actual apology or really any accountability — the E.l.f Cosmetics has left the campaign video up across its social media accounts. Naturally, people aren’t happy.
Clark also slammed the apology in a follow-up video.
In it, she deliciously noted that her video calling them out got five million more views than E.l.f Cosmetics’ campaign. WOOOOOF.
Ultimately, there are so many meetings that take place before national campaigns like this one go ahead. It’s pretty wild that no one thought to mention Rife’s controversial comedy background — especially for a brand which relies so heavily on a customer base predominantly made of women.
In future, E.l.f Cosmetics should work harder to actually ~listen~ to women, and perhaps Matt Rife should stick to buying haunted houses instead of using his (alleged) jaw implant and (alleged) lip fillers to sell make-up.
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