The Internet Turns On Matt Rife

**Branson Quirke** (0:07)
Hey, welcome to The TMZ Podcast Afternoon Edition.

**Eric Wilson** (0:11)
Afternoon.

**Branson Quirke** (0:12)
I am Branson Quirke.

**Eric Wilson** (0:13)
I am Eric Wilson.

**Branson Quirke** (0:15)
And okay, you guys gotta know, Eric really wanted to be different before we started this, huh?

**Eric Wilson** (0:21)
Yep.

**Branson Quirke** (0:21)
And so he unscrewed-

**Eric Wilson** (0:23)
Trying something new.

**Branson Quirke** (0:24)
Unscrewed the mic.

**Eric Wilson** (0:25)
Something they're afraid to do here.

**Branson Quirke** (0:26)
Screwed the mic.

**Eric Wilson** (0:27)
Eric comes in, changes things up, Branson, you just scratched the desk.

**Branson Quirke** (0:32)
No, it's fine. No, no, it's all goody. It's all goody.

**Eric Wilson** (0:35)
See, he wants to talk about me ruining things. He just broke the desk.

**Branson Quirke** (0:38)
It's all goody in the hoodie.

**Eric Wilson** (0:40)
All right.

**Branson Quirke** (0:40)
So he's doing a handheld today. Yeah, we'll see how the audio turns out. Eric is holding it with his hand. So let us know if the audio is-

**Eric Wilson** (0:46)
Doesn't sound any different.

**Branson Quirke** (0:47)
Terrible.

**Eric Wilson** (0:47)
Except I'm probably clearer because the microphone's closer to my mouth.

**Branson Quirke** (0:50)
You know, like a real podcast. Yeah. Like Joe Rogan.

**Eric Wilson** (0:52)
A real one.

**Branson Quirke** (0:53)
Yeah, like Joe Rogan, right?

**Eric Wilson** (0:54)
Yeah, sure.

**Branson Quirke** (0:56)
Okay. All right, well, we have a few stories for you today. Finally, nothing that's serious.
Not too serious. Serious, but not-

**Eric Wilson** (1:03)
Tell them someone to remove yourself from this Earth.

**Branson Quirke** (1:06)
We're talking Matt Rife today. So this morning, we brought up this story to you guys about Matt Rife and how he faced significant backlash for a comment back to somebody on Instagram that he made, and it's weird.

**Eric Wilson** (1:21)
I can't say, go kill yourself, because he didn't say that, but yeah, he said, remove yourself from this Earth, which there was a lengthy debate in the office about if that was him saying, go kill yourself.

**Branson Quirke** (1:34)
You mean physically him writing that out, or if that means-

**Eric Wilson** (1:37)
That's his loophole of saying, go kill yourself.

**Branson Quirke** (1:40)
So Matt Rife, he owns a, with a counterpart, he owns the Warren Haunted House.

**Eric Wilson** (1:47)
I will say him and Elton have been doing these paranormal investigations for years. I watched them through the pandemic. It's actually the only part of Matt Rife I like, is these ghost hunts that he goes on. He's a lot of fun.
And this guy's attacking him for not being a real paranormal investigator. This autistic person apparently is. And they're trashing him owning the Warren's house and obviously the famous Annabelle doll.

**Branson Quirke** (2:13)
Right. Chris was expressing concern and asking Matt not to place the doll in a certain location. And Matt just went back at him. Do we have the quote here of Matt's exact quote?
All I know is he said, Oh, yeah, here it is. Please remove yourself from this earth. And then went on and on, trashing him and everything. Here's the thing.

**Eric Wilson** (2:35)
Again, I can't believe I spent the day defending Matt Rife.
Did not see that when I woke up this morning. But I think if you are a celebrity, good or bad, and you get harassed or bullied or, you know, said shit to you on online, you get to say it back. You don't have to be the better person here. You can be, if that's your shtick, you know, that's fine. I support that as well. But if you want to bully because someone's harassing you, I think you do that. And I don't think you get to bully someone and then hide under the fact that you're autistic.

**Branson Quirke** (3:13)
That's also a point.

**Eric Wilson** (3:14)
That's also a hot take.

**Branson Quirke** (3:15)
Of course. I agree with you. You can't come back at someone after you just trashed them and blame others, for example.

**Eric Wilson** (3:21)
And also to his defense, Matt said that there were a lot of comments from this guy and from other people that were deleted, that muddled the context of everything. So what do we have here? Two guys going after each other over the comments online. And that's, at the end of the day, all it really is. But Chris's dad, the autistic gentleman here, is responding, we spoke directly to him. He is irate and says that Matt's response was completely unprovoked.
His name is Kevin. Kevin says, Chris was simply expressing concern about where Matt was placing the Annabelle doll at the Haunted Warren Mansion or Museum and wasn't trying to attack him.