Matafeo was born in Auckland, New Zealand in 1992,[4] to parents John Matafeo and Diane Vuletich.[5][6] Her parents are Rastafarians,[7] who first met each other through their participation in the same Twelve Tribes of Israel denomination.[6][8] As a child, Rose would attend monthly services with her family at the group's local headquarters in New Lynn, Auckland.[5]
Rose's father John is a Samoan man and a first-generation immigrant to New Zealand; he joined the Polynesian Panthers movement when he was a teenager, and went on to work in an administrative role at the Rastafarian Church.[6][5] Her mother Diane is a Pākehā New Zealander of Scottish and Croatian heritage; she works as a teacher, and moved to Kampala, Uganda to teach English in the 2010s.[9][10][3][11]
At the age of 15, Matafeo started doing stand-up comedy through the platform of the "Class Comedians" programme put on by the New Zealand Comedy Trust, and went on to win the "Nailed It on the Night" award at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival in 2007. She has been a regular at the festival since.[15]
Career
Since graduating from the "Class Comedians" programme, Matafeo went on to win best newcomer at the 2010 New Zealand International Comedy Festival.[15] She became a host of the popular comedy festival show "Fanfiction Comedy"[16] in 2012. She has had success with her solo stand-up comedy shows at the festival: Life Lessons I've Learnt from the 60s Based on Things I've Seen on Television (2011), Scout's Honour (2012) and The Rose Matafeo Variety Hour (2013).
Matafeo won the Billy T Award, which recognises the potential of up-and-coming New Zealand comedians, for The Rose Matafeo Variety Hour in 2013, having previously been nominated for her show Scout's Honour in 2012.[17][18][19] Her 2014 show at the festival was titled Pizza Party.[20] In 2015, she performed a duo show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with Guy Montgomery titled Rose Matafeo and Guy Montgomery Are Friends.[21] On 25 August 2018, Matafeo won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, for her show Horndog,[22] collecting a £10,000 prize.[23][24] She was the first person of colour to win the prestigious award for a solo show,[25] and the first New Zealander.[24][26] Only four other female solo stand-up comedians had won the award before her.[25]
She was a TV presenter and host of U Live, which ran on the TVNZ U channel from 13 March 2011 until 31 August 2013, when the channel came to an end. Upon TVNZ U finishing, she took on a new role as a writer for Jono and Ben at Ten, a satirical news and comedy sketch show.[27] Matafeo co-created and starred in the New Zealand sketch comedy show Funny Girls for three seasons from 2015 until 2018.[28] She has been playing the role of Talia in the ABC comedy Squinters since 2018.[29]
Having toured as a stand-up comedian for ten years, Matafeo said in 2018 that she wanted to "take a break from hour long comedy" and instead act more, write more, and also direct.[31] Matafeo went on to serve as director on five episodes of the 2019 New Zealand TV comedy Golden Boy.[32]
Matafeo had her US television debut as a comedian on Conan O'Brien's talk show Conan on TBS on 9 May 2019.[33]
In 2019, Matafeo directed five episodes in the first season of Golden Boy, a New Zealand sitcom for TV3.[38] In 2020, she returned to the set of Golden Boy in the second season as one of the supporting cast.[39]
In July 2020, Matafeo joined Guy Montgomery on the comedy show Tiny Tour of Aotearoa travelling across New Zealand.[40]
On 20 August 2020, Matafeo's comedy special Horndog was released on HBO Max.[41]
In April 2021, Starstruck, a six-part rom-com created by and starring Matefeo aired on the BBC (UK), HBO (USA), TVNZ (New Zealand), and ABC (Australia).[44][45][46] Co-written by Matafeo and Alice Snedden, the cast included actor Nikesh Patel, as leading man and love interest Tom. Filming for the first series was delayed due to the COVID pandemic, however a second series of the show was commissioned before the first series had even begun filming.[47] A third series was released in September 2023.[48]
In 2023, Matafeo guest presented the British quiz show Pointless.[49] In May 2023 it was announced that she will be taking on the role of Taskmaster in Junior Taskmaster, a Taskmaster spin-off for children aged 9–11, with Mike Wozniak as the assistant.[50]
Personal life
Matafeo previously dated the New Zealand comedian Guy Williams.[51][52] In 2015, she moved to London, where her then-boyfriend James Acaster lived; she shared a flat with comedian Nish Kumar.[3][53][54][55] Matafeo and Acaster broke up in 2017.[56]
One of Matafeo's interests is mukbang videos (in which the host eats large amounts of food while interacting with the audience), so in July 2018 she decided to make her own mukbang video using takeaways purchased from Double Happy Takeaways in Auckland. It was featured on The Spinoff.[57]
Matafeo is a supporter of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand and was scheduled to host their campaign launch for the 2020 general election, but was later asked to step down from the role. The Green Party said this was due to a miscommunication within the party.[51]
