Matt Mathews: The Hustle Behind The Humor

Throwback Thursday (Originally aired: 9/29/25) Bunnie Xo sits down with comedian and boudoir photographer Matt Mathews for a candid and often hilarious conversation about friendship, authenticity, and life in the spotlight. The two bond over their shared quirks—like avoiding pubic hair and red carpets—while digging into deeper topics of mental health, addiction awareness, and the challenges of staying true to yourself in a social media-driven world. Matt opens up about his journey from a difficult childhood in Bessemer, Alabama, to becoming a viral TikTok sensation, selling out comedy shows, and building a career that blends laughter with raw honesty. He shares the struggles of loneliness behind the success, the balancing act between public persona and private life, and the importance of showing kindness to fans. The conversation also highlights a pivotal moment with Jewel that inspired Matt to pursue music, sparking a collaboration and a new sense of confidence in his voice. While he admits promoting his music without falling into cringey social media trends is a challenge, Matt stays grounded, humble, and focused on blending his comedy with music in a way that feels authentic. At its core, this episode is about resilience, the power of storytelling, and finding clarity in fame—all wrapped up with laughter and plenty of unfiltered honesty. Matt Mathews: Website https://www.mattmathews.com/ Watch Full Episodes & More: YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@Dumbblondepod

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:11Bunnie XO?

  Is this thing on?

• 0:15Bunnie XO?

  What's up you sexy motherfuckers? Welcome to another episode of Dumb Blonde. Today I have my brother from another mother, Mr. Matt Matthews in the house, baby.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  Yes, Matt, period.

• 0:27Bunnie XO?

  I am so happy you're here.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy.

• 0:31Bunnie XO?

  It's crazy because I didn't really even know who you were until we posted the clip of me cleaning the freaking stalls out at the barn or at the farm. And everybody's tagging Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt. Matt needs, you need to meet Matt. You need to do this. And I'm like, who is Matt? So I go over to your page and I'm, I, it was, we had two different reactions. When I saw you, I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna love this man. Like he's fucking amazing. He's out there talking shit. He's in a robe. He's fucking busting his husband's balls. Like, I fucking love this man. And then you had a different reaction. What was it?

• 1:05Speaker 01

  I thought she was gonna be a twat. Like, I was like, I'm not gonna like her. She is this pretty, like beautiful. I thought she is damn sure gonna be a bitch. And then it goes to show you that you can't judge somebody, you know? And as soon as we, as soon as we connected and we started talking, like it was just like immediate friendship.

• 1:24Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  It just, we just hit it off.

• 1:27Bunnie XO?

  Well, and Kale loves you. Kale Lowry from Teen Mom. You guys know I had Kale on a few years ago. Love Kale. And if Kale loves you, I love you too. Because Kale's kind of just like me. We're just like, take it or leave it. This is who we are. And when I saw that you guys had, you know, had your, you know, little moments together online too. I was like, okay, he's cool people, so.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  Kale's, Kale's one of my besties. She's a, she's a ride or die. And she's also a twat. So I'm like, uh, you know, it's, it's, it really, it really was all just kind of full circle. She was like, oh, you're gonna love Bunny. And I was like, okay. If you say I like her, I'll like her. And then I like, uh, we met and I fell in love. And I was like, she, she's truly the kindest person. And like, that's hard to find.

• 2:08Bunnie XO?

  I love it. You're very sweet.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  I'm being, I ain't lying.

• 2:11Bunnie XO?

  Well, I also fell in love with you when I heard that you hate Bush. I was like, fucking thank God. Like, there's like this trend right now where everybody fucking wants to grow out their bush. And why do we think that's hot? Thigh to thigh, it looks like fucking Jiffy Pop.

• 2:31Bunnie XO?

  I can't, who wants to dive in that?

• 2:33Speaker 01

  No, I don't want to floss my teeth when I'm trying to suck on a tallywaker, okay?

• 2:37Bunnie XO?

  I don't want to look for the snake in the grass.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  No, hell no.

• 2:40Bunnie XO?

  You know what I'm saying?

• 2:41Speaker 01

  I won't do it. And it's not, it ain't sanitary, you know?

• 2:45Bunnie XO?

  It smells like BO.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  If, if I'm trying, you know, to service the Lord's work down there, you know, I don't want, if, if there's a scent, I'm done.

• 2:56Bunnie XO?

  No, you can't do it. You can't do it.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  It's over for me.

• 2:59Bunnie XO?

  Nope. So as soon as I heard you didn't like bush, I was like, this is my fucking partner. Like, this is it. This seals the deal because I can't do bush either.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  I think what sealed the deal for me is when we were talking about going to award shows. And we were talking about like red carpets and all that. And we were like, we would just be in the corner, just like, like, this is not it. Cause it's too much people in for me.

• 3:21Bunnie XO?

  Ask my team. I fucking, and I talk about it on the podcast all the time. I fucking hate red carpets. They, one, the cameramen are just, love you guys, love our photographers. They just don't know your angles.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  Oh, no. I'll have forty-five fucking chins.

• 3:36Bunnie XO?

  Oh, dude, there's one time I looked like Slimer. Straight up Slimer. I looked like fucking Slimer. I was like, hey. Like, I don't know how, they caught me like from the side.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  They do you dirty.

• 3:46Bunnie XO?

  Bro, and they use the picture in every fucking magazine. I'm like, can we not use the one with the five chins? Like, what are we doing here? That, they're hot. There was one award show that we went to, what was it?

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Wait, I thought you meant the cameraman. I said, I ain't never seen a hot one. Let me know which awards you was going to, because the ones that I be going to, they not hot.

• 4:07Bunnie XO?

  No, no, no, no, not the cameraman, but the award shows, like, we went to one in Texas. It was in the fucking summertime.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  ACMs this year?

• 4:15Bunnie XO?

  It wasn't this year, it was last year or two years ago, three years ago?

• 4:18Speaker 01

  I was having a heat stroke this year. My whole titties about, about slap the hell sweat it off.

• 4:24Bunnie XO?

  Try wearing a dress. Your thighs are just fucking just moist. Everything from down under is moist. It's terrible. And they had us in like a, um, a tent that had no ACM.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  Oh, hell no.

• 4:36Bunnie XO?

  Like, it was so bad. So, yeah, the award shows, I don't like them. I can't, I just can't. Too many people, too much energy.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  And they yell at you? I'm like, yell at me one more fucking time, because I'mma throw something at you. And I hate feeling like, I hate, you know, having to walk around, this sounds fucking first world problems.

• 4:55Bunnie XO?

  Right, right.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Like, I, I mean, just having to like, sit around and wait to do an interview.

• 5:00Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  Or like, sit around and I'm just like, can we?

• 5:03Bunnie XO?

  It's the old hurry up and wait.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:05Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, and I'm sorry, it's, I go to support my husband and I'm thankful to even be there because I would have no reason

• 5:11Speaker 01

  It's an honor, yeah.

• 5:12Bunnie XO?

  To be there without my husband. Um, but still, it's a lot. It's a lot to take on, which is why I don't really, I try not to go to them. And I tell my husband, like, this year, I'm like, do we have to go to every frigging award show?

• 5:23Speaker 01

  And then you're sitting and like, you feel like a sardine in those seats and you're squished.

• 5:27Bunnie XO?

  It's like, you know, just you, it's like church. Turn to the person and say hi and tell them that you, that you love them today. And you know, it's like, you have to turn to everybody and say hi. And it's just like, it's a whole big hullabaloo.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  I feel like, I feel like we should do, we should, from, from now on, the red carpets, I feel like we should just, we'll do our walks and then we'll just have to have each other for moral support and be like,

• 5:48Bunnie XO?

  I'm totally down.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Fuck this shit.

• 5:49Bunnie XO?

  Let's do it. We could do the interviews together, too.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 5:52Bunnie XO?

  I hate the interviews because I'm so bad with like, right on the spot, like, when they ask you questions. And then it's like, I wanna cuss and I'm on air and it's just like, yeah, no, it's a whole nightmare. So, we'll just hold each other's hands and do the interviews together. I can't wait. You wanna do some rapid fire questions with me to start this, this interview off? Okay, don't think too much, just I want what comes to your head.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:12Bunnie XO?

  Which farm animal has seen you naked the most?

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Oh, the horses.

• 6:16Bunnie XO?

  Do tell.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, so I, my horses, my barn is right beneath my house.

• 6:22Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  So like, I can walk to, down into the barn from my kitchen.

• 6:27Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  So, and y'all know I wear a robe every, like, that's what I wear. And people really think that I'm being cute, like, oh, he's just wearing that for, for views. No, bitch, I don't like clothes.

• 6:35Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  Okay, so I sleep naked. So, when I wake up, I throw on a robe, and nine times out of 10, like, I am getting up at 6 a.m. to go put horses up before it gets hot and feed them and do all that. So I'm doing all that before I ever have my coffee.

• 6:49Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  So like, that's the first thing that I'm doing. So a lot of times, I'll just be walking down there, just being like, baby, when that thing gets a thingin', you know, just...

• 6:57Bunnie XO?

  Have they ever looked at you sideways?

• 6:58Speaker 01

  Oh, they look at me sideways every day. They're like, here comes this bitch again.

• 7:02Bunnie XO?

  Just judgmental as fuck.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  They are.

• 7:04Bunnie XO?

  What's the biggest lie you've told without getting caught?

• 7:07Speaker 01

  Biggest lie I've told without getting caught? I don't know, because my problem is I don't lie, I'm too honest.

• 7:13Bunnie XO?

  Too honest.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  So I get in trouble for that.

• 7:15Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Um, biggest lie I've told?

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Um...

• 7:21Bunnie XO?

  You can pass if you need to.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't, I really don't know.

• 7:24Bunnie XO?

  Gotcha. Where does DM you've ever gotten?

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Straight men that were, that are married.

• 7:31Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  They come to my shows with their wives.

• 7:33Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  And then they'll, they'll DM me after the show, like, you wanna come over? No, bitch. I don't, or they'll send me pictures of their pecker.

• 7:39Bunnie XO?

  By themselves, or like with their wives?

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Both.

• 7:42Bunnie XO?

  Really?

• 7:43Speaker 01

  I'm like, first of all, you think I'm about to fuck you? Absolutely not.

• 7:46Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Okay? Second of all...

• 7:48Bunnie XO?

  What if it was somebody really hot, though?

• 7:49Speaker 01

  I mean, okay...

• 7:51Bunnie XO?

  Are you and your husband open?

• 7:52Speaker 01

  No, so, okay, but here's the, here's the tea on that, though. Okay, so I wasn't a throuple at one point. Um, it didn't last very long. Uh, I'd never done that before.

• 8:03Bunnie XO?

  I've done a throuple before.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  And you have done it before? Did it, well, obviously it didn't work, but... It was, it was, it was very weird to me. So my husband is very much not, not jealous. Like, he's like...

• 8:15Bunnie XO?

  That's how my husband is.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  He's like, if you wanted to go fuck somebody, you could. Like, he doesn't care.

• 8:19Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  I cannot think like that. I think more like a girl.

• 8:22Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  My husband's very much a straight man.

• 8:24Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Like, he just likes telly wicker, you know? So... I just.

• 8:28Bunnie XO?

  When he says tallywhacker, I think of a jar of pickles.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  I'm like, I don't know why I say that.

• 8:33Bunnie XO?

  I love, I say tallywhacker. So I love, when I think of it though, I just think of like a jar of pickles.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  So it's very strange to me how he can think that way and not, I mean, like truly, he could be like, you're on tour, a hot guy messages you, okay.

• 8:45Bunnie XO?

  That's how my husband is. And it took me the longest time because I'm like you, for the, for the longest time, I got so offended. And I was like, why are you not jealous? Why are you not fighting for me? But then I realized that that's not what love is. Love is freedom, you know? And like, yes, okay, if, if a man tells you to go sleep with somebody else, nobody wants to fucking hear that from their significant other. So I think that they could have other ways of saying it. But I also think that maybe that's their way of not getting hurt too.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  Well, I think for him was, we had a deep conversation about it. I was like, how do you, how are you okay with that? And he said, we've been together for 11 years. He said, I know how much you adore me. I know how much you love me. I know how much I love you. He was like, and I know that you are never going to go sleep with somebody and not come home. And I'm like, well, number one, I've never done it. Like, cause I just can't. Not that I don't like a lot, you know, a lot of tallywhacker every once in a while, but.

• 9:40Bunnie XO?

  A little strange.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  To me, I'm like, nobody's gonna do it as good as he does. He's had 10 years of practice, you know? Um, but it is, it's very weird to me. So he would absolutely be okay with it if I wanted to.

• 9:53Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  But then again, it's like, how am I gonna go do that? And then somebody not post all over the internet that they fucked my Matthews.

• 9:58Bunnie XO?

  And that's what I've told my husband too. I'm like, how am I supposed to just find, which I don't want to go sleep with random men either. Because one, I have OCD and two, I just, people's energy freaks me out. And it's like, I don't want your energy inside of me. I don't know you. I don't, you know, like.

• 10:11Speaker 01

  It's not, it's not possible, but I mean.

• 10:14Bunnie XO?

  Have you guys ever had threesomes?

• 10:15Speaker 01

  No, and he wants to. He wants to so bad, but I'm like. I'm terrified because I will spiral. What like, what if they're hotter than me?

• 10:24Bunnie XO?

  No, you're so handsome.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Then or like, what if they're not hotter than me? Then like, bitch, what am I? You know, like, I'm so, I'm so, I'm like, this is not Build-A-Bear, bitch. Like, what are we doing? You know, so I'm very, he would love it and like, he would be all about, again, very typical man, very typical man. And I am just like, so that's kind of how the whole like throuple thing started.

• 10:50Bunnie XO?

  One more question. Who's messier? You, your husband, or the goats?

• 10:55Speaker 01

  The goats.

• 10:56Bunnie XO?

  The goats?

• 10:56Speaker 01

  They fucking stank. Oh, my God. Y'all don't have goats, right?

• 10:59Bunnie XO?

  I will, I refuse.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Don't do it.

• 11:01Bunnie XO?

  I refuse.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  It's a trap. A billy goat will piss in his beard to attract the females.

• 11:08Bunnie XO?

  How does he reach?

• 11:09Speaker 01

  You ain't never seen one of them things?

• 11:11Bunnie XO?

  No.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  Girl, they like this long.

• 11:13Bunnie XO?

  No.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  And I got, I got, they suck their own tallywhackers.

• 11:17Bunnie XO?

  Oh, God.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  And then he pisses in his beard and it stinks. Oh, it's just, it's, I'm about to throw up.

• 11:24Bunnie XO?

  What's wrong with that dude?

• 11:25Speaker 01

  It's atrocious.

• 11:27Bunnie XO?

  That sounds like my bull. My bull was getting really horny and he was like fucking chairs. Like, it was crazy.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  Oh, no, we can't, no.

• 11:32Bunnie XO?

  He tried to mount a chair last night while I was on it. And then I woke up this morning and he fucking took all my chairs and just threw them everywhere. Like, he had a fucking night last night.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  See?

• 11:43Bunnie XO?

  It's crazy how farm animals have personalities, right?

• 11:45Speaker 01

  They're wild. They're wild.

• 11:47Bunnie XO?

  But they're like little souls that really are like, they're like fucking just little humans, like that can't speak. It's crazy. It's wild. Moving on. You talk very openly about your childhood and you actually wrote a book in 2019, a memoir called Uncovered: The Naked Truth of Life, Love, and Addiction.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  Damn, you do your homework before these.

• 12:10Bunnie XO?

  That's right, baby. That's what I'm here for. And, you know, we talked a little bit about, about your sisters, um, and I think believe your brother in the beginning of the podcast. And, you know, can you take me on that journey of? Growing up and in a family with addiction and just how you made it through that?

• 12:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I think every family has their demons and their battles and mine was, I grew up in government housing with an alcoholic mom and we lived in the projects of Bessemer, Alabama. And I always tell people, I'm like, if you have never heard of Bessemer, all you gotta do is watch the first forty-eight. Cause we're on every episode.

• 12:48Bunnie XO?

  Literally Alabama is so, not to cut you off, but I'm from Vegas and I grew up on the east side of Vegas, which is pretty ghetto. Um, our ghettos on the west coast do not come come close to comparing to the ghettos that are in the country. It is a whole different vibe.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  And Bessemer, Bessemer was actually voted number one crime rated city in the country.

• 13:12Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  So like, it's a really bad, bad area. And, um, but to me, I mean, like, that's my home. You know what I mean? I don't give a, yeah, I ain't scared. You know, I walk around Bessemer like, that's big Bessemer, it don't, it don't bother me. But I lived in government housing with my mom and I was the only white gay kid in the neighborhood, you know, so life was.

• 13:29Bunnie XO?

  Did you always know that you were gay?

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, I wanted to fuck Uncle Jesse in the fourth grade, you know, like from Full House, ooh, baby.

• 13:37Bunnie XO?

  John Samos was fucking fine though.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  He's still fine.

• 13:40Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  I would fuck the dust off that old man. I'm telling you.

• 13:43Bunnie XO?

  He's like four eleven, isn't he?

• 13:45Speaker 01

  Don't tell me that.

• 13:46Bunnie XO?

  No, he's like so.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  No, you just broke my heart. Somebody Google that.

• 13:53Bunnie XO?

  Give it a go.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  He can't be four eleven.

• 13:55Bunnie XO?

  Google lies though, but he's definitely five-two.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  I know you fucking lie.

• 14:02Bunnie XO?

  I'm not lying. No, he's not. No, he's not. No, he's not. No, he's not.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  I just almost threw up a little bit.

• 14:09Bunnie XO?

  He is not.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  I have wanted to fuck him for twenty-five years.

• 14:12Bunnie XO?

  Search more. He is not six foot.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm friends with Josh. Do you know Josh Peck? From Drake and Josh?

• 14:23Bunnie XO?

  No, I don't. Do we know Josh Peck?

• 14:24Speaker 01

  Okay, so Josh, Josh Peck, I'm friends with him and he did a, him and John did a show together?

• 14:31Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  And-

• 14:32Bunnie XO?

  Should we call Josh and ask him how tall he is?

• 14:34Speaker 01

  If I have to call Josh and be like-

• 14:35Bunnie XO?

  Call Josh right now and ask him how tall John is. Cause I'm willing, yeah, we're calling in a lifeline because I have heard from other people who have met him that he is very short.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  I don't know if he's gonna answer or not, but we're gonna call him.

• 14:48Bunnie XO?

  He does wear lifts. I heard he wears lifts.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Stop.

• 14:51Bunnie XO?

  Rebecca Romain Stamos is the one that said that-

• 14:54Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  Hi.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  This is the most random question for you ever. I'm in the middle of filming a podcast with Bunny and we, I was talking about, I wanted to fuck John Stamos when I was in the 4th grade. And she said that he's 4'11". Is he really that short?

• 15:12Speaker 02

  No, no, he's, he's properly tall, like 6 feet.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  See?

• 15:16Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Properly tall. Wow. That's what we needed to know. Thank you, Josh. I love you.

• 15:21Bunnie XO?

  Thank you, Josh.

• 15:22Speaker 02

  I hope it happens between you and John. I'm hoping that can help.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  You're, you're so good to me.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  Bye.

• 15:30Bunnie XO?

  That's crazy because Rebecca Romain Stamos, I thought, went on like this whole spree when they got a divorce, talking about how short he was and how he wears lifts and his-

• 15:37Speaker 01

  He's properly 6 foot tall.

• 15:38Bunnie XO?

  There you go. How tall are you?

• 15:40Speaker 01

  5'11".

• 15:41Bunnie XO?

  There you go.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  Just like, I like I'm just a smidge taller. Actually, I like I'm 6 foot 5. You know, I wanna be able to climb on like a tree.

• 15:48Bunnie XO?

  How old, or how tall is your husband?

• 15:49Speaker 01

  6 foot.

• 15:50Bunnie XO?

  Is he 6 foot? Yeah. Would he, would you guys be willing to bring John Stamos in as a third?

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 15:58Bunnie XO?

  John?

• 15:58Speaker 01

  John?

• 15:59Bunnie XO?

  We need to make this happen.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  I'm here, baby.

• 16:02Bunnie XO?

  So you, so you knew ever since that you were a little boy that you loved men?

• 16:07Speaker 01

  Never, that's the thing too. Like I've never been attracted to a woman. Like never sexually, like in my whole life. Like even as a young, young kid. Like I've never been, and I tell people all the time when they're like, oh, when did you decide to be gay? Or when did you know that it was a choice? And I'm like, it's not a choice. And people don't understand that. And I say to that, I'm like, a straight person, when did you choose to be straight? They're like, I didn't, I just was. And I was like, exactly. So if you didn't choose to be straight, what makes you think that I had the just the fucking great decision to choose my sexuality?

• 16:37Bunnie XO?

  That's why I always say, when did you know?

• 16:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:39Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  And, and so I knew very young, like, I never once have I ever been attracted to a woman. Like, I can, obviously, like, I think you're stunning, you know what I mean? And I can think that a woman's beautiful, but I'm not sexually attracted to them.

• 16:51Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  And, um, so I've always, even as a very young kid, I've always been, and my sister's a lesbian. So like, clearly, you know, like, the shit is there.

• 17:00Bunnie XO?

  It's in the DNA.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. And so my mom was an alcoholic, you know, she really struggled with alcoholism. That was her drug of choice, um, and prescription drugs, like, that was, that was her vice. Uh, my brother and sister were both addicts as well. Um, I didn't really have a, a great relationship with my brother growing up. We never really got along. Uh, I remember as a young kid, like, he would, he was the type that he was always very hard into drugs.

• 17:29Bunnie XO?

  What's the age difference between you guys?

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Eleven years. So they're twins.

• 17:33Bunnie XO?

  Oh, wow, okay.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  So, uh, they're 11 years older than me. And like, I remember as a kid, I would get like a bicycle or something for Christmas and he would take it and pawn it for drug money.

• 17:44Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  Um, and it's, it's really weird because I was very close to my sister. I adored her. I thought she walked on water. Like, I mean, I, I remember I would go stay with my grandmother in South Carolina for the summer, and I wouldn't leave the house because I thought my sister was gonna call. You know what I mean? Like, I was so, we were, we were like this.

• 18:01Bunnie XO?

  Was she kind of like your mother figure?

• 18:03Speaker 01

  I mean, kind of, yeah. Like, we were very, very close. I would go stay with her all the time. I mean, we were just, we were very, very close. And then as I got older, I saw her addiction as well. She was better at hiding it.

• 18:15Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  And I saw what, now, our, our, I call her my birth mother. Um, so our birth mom died in 2007 to her addiction. My dad has been a car salesman for 30 years, so he didn't get custody of me until I was nine years old. So...

• 18:30Bunnie XO?

  So dad was never in the picture?

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Not when I lived, I mean, he was, I would see him on the weekends. But my mom had custody of me and I lived with her until I was nine. Um, and then my, as I got older, I saw the addiction with my sister. And I saw, I was like, I can't, you know, like, I can't be a part of it. So I had to cut both of them off. I haven't had contact with them in years. My birth mom died in 2007 from, um, she, now she did get sober from alcohol. She went to AA the last year of her life. Um, and she got sober from that, but she was still abusing prescription drugs. And she mixed two drugs that weren't supposed to be mixed together and died in her sleep in 2007. And then my dad got custody of, uh, my dad had already had custody of, custody of me at this point. Uh, I was, he got custody of me when I was nine. And then he remarried.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  So he remarried the woman that I called mom. So like this woman was absolutely everything to me. She like, you know, she raised me from nine on. She had horses. So that's where, I've always been obsessed with horses, but I never had the opportunity to have horses or ride horses or anything like that. And so she had horses and I thought she was everything, you know? So she taught me how to ride horses and she was a CRNA. So she put people to sleep for surgery. So she was really smart and like, her family like embraced me and they became my, cause I didn't have much of a family. Um, and they embraced me and they became my family and they loved me. Um, and then I, you know, I just, I still didn't have any real relationship with my brother and sister after that.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  Um, and then she passed away in 2015.

• 20:05Bunnie XO?

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• 20:47Bunnie XO?

  Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com.

• 20:58Speaker 03

  Way fair, every style, every home. Attention all new and existing members of the W D N C. I'm Melanie Sanders and this is the We Do Not Care Club Podcast. We got to midlife and realized we just simply do not care much anymore. Now, we gotta help each other make sense of hot flashes, dry coochie, chin hair, trifling families, brain fog, and bat wings. We are not alone and we will be heard. So come join the W D N C. Follow and listen to the We Do Not Care Club Podcast with Melanie Sanders wherever you get your podcasts.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  So I lost my biological mom and then I lost her in 2015. So that really kind of, you know, just kind of showed me like the things that in life that are really important, right? So it really kind of, it gave me a great relationship with my dad. We didn't have a great relationship growing up. We fought a lot. We didn't see eye to eye. Um, I moved from government housing with an alcoholic mom to a trailer park with a marine dad. And I thought that life was gonna be so much better. Maybe it wasn't no better. It was worse. It was, it was worse.

• 22:00Bunnie XO?

  That's very traumatic too, because you're going from one, you know,

• 22:04Speaker 01

  One extreme.

• 22:04Bunnie XO?

  One fire into another and that's, that's, Marines are very, known to be very abusive.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and he wasn't, he was never physically abusive.

• 22:15Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  As he was more verbally abusive, like he just, and it wasn't that he was really verbally abusive. He just had no patience. So like, he would just yell at me or like, you know, it was just very, like, we just never got along. So we spent most of our time apart. Um, I remember when he and my mom, my mom and him split before she, she moved to Tennessee and got remarried and before she, and that's when she passed away. But I remember in high school, um, when they split, they split when I was probably 16. And so, uh, you know, she had moved to her own place and I was still in high school and I still lived with him. And he, I think he's a lot of the reason why I am the way that I am today and, and successful. Because he would say, here's a hundred dollars.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  This is for your grocery money this week. And he would go to the bars and he would, you know, hang out. He would go to his girlfriend's house and spend the night with his girlfriend. So I'm 16 years old, living on my own,

• 23:12Bunnie XO?

  Figure it out.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  In this house. And, um, at the time I hated him, you know? But now I look back and I'm like, I'm thankful for how he raised me that way because now I'm, I'm good with money. And I'm able to, you know, be, I'm able to stand on my own two feet because of how he raised me and I'm very open that we didn't have a good relationship growing up and we fought and we butted heads and it wasn't good, but now he's my best friend. You know, and it was, it was really when I came out and I was, you know, I came out when I was 19, bitch, come on now.

• 23:43Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  You know, like you knew.

• 23:45Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  You knew when I was playing with little mermaid Barbie dolls, like you knew that I was.

• 23:50Bunnie XO?

  Were you scared to come out to him?

• 23:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was terrified because I was terrified because I thought that he was going to write me off. And I didn't have any family, you know, like he was really the only family that I had, like besides, you know, I did have my, my mom's family.

• 24:03Bunnie XO?

  Did your sister know that you were gay?

• 24:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, my sister always knew.

• 24:06Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  You know, cause she was a lesbian too, you know, she was licking on carpets. So she knew like.

• 24:11Bunnie XO?

  Hopefully not Bush.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably the Bush.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  But I mean, she always knew, like she never really said anything or made a big deal out of it. And it's funny because now my aunt is the one that she kind of came out for me. She's, she's my, my mom, not my biological mom, my mom's sister.

• 24:27Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  She became my best friend, you know, like.

• 24:30Bunnie XO?

  I love chosen family.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  She, yes.

• 24:32Bunnie XO?

  Cause I have chosen family.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. And she became my best friend. And I remember I was laying in the bed with her one night and she was on the phone with my mom and she was like, we gotta find Matt a boyfriend. And I was like, what? She was like, we gotta find Matt a boyfriend. And I was like, what you, what'd you talk about? Or, and I would tell her like I'd be, and I was like, I got a date. And she was like, is it with a girl or is it with a boy? And I'm like, bitch, much of business, you know, so I.

• 24:59Bunnie XO?

  But how amazing to feel seen in that moment.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And, and they were very much like, you are who you are, you love who you love, you gotta be who you gotta be. So they were such a, such a like strong, like solid ground and foundation for me because they allowed me to be who I was.

• 25:18Bunnie XO?

  Did anybody at school know? Were you out at school?

• 25:20Speaker 01

  I never really came out at school. Obviously people knew I was gay. Like it's not, it's not the biggest secret in the world. Like I always say like, I'm not the, I'm not the like, the most flamboyant, like I don't wear makeup or like shopping and, and you know, something like that. I'm not that gay. But obviously you can tell that I'm gay. You know, like there's, there's, there's levels of gayness, right? You know, I don't get my nails done. Like I live on a farm and you know, but you know, there's definitely you, my husband is the type of man, you wouldn't know he's gay if you met him.

• 25:50Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Like you would never know.

• 25:51Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  Me, you're like, oh. He's gay as hell.

• 25:53Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  Um, so I was definitely picked on in school, not because people knew I was, not because I was openly out, because I was so terrified of that, but because people knew. So like people would ask, they'd be, they would call me, and they would call me faggot, or like, you know, whatever. They would, like the jocks, like if I ever went to a football game, they would like, I remember one night I was at a football game, and one of the guys like threw a, threw a football at me, and like I had caught it, and he was like, he came up to me, he was like, so hey, are you gay? You know, and they would do stuff like that. The thing about me was I grew up in the projects, you know, so, and I was the only white gay, white gay kid there. So like you had to stand up for yourself, you know? I always tell people like, you couldn't live in the projects and be this fabulous without knowing how to swing on a hoe.

• 26:37Bunnie XO?

  I was gonna say, can you throw a pause?

• 26:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I can, I can hold my own, you know, like I'll bust a bitch when I need to. And so I never let people walk all over me. Like you might try to pick on me, but you weren't gonna lay your hands on me because I'd scrub the ground with your ass.

• 26:50Bunnie XO?

  Right, right, right.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  And so I never was like beat up or put in lockers, because I would clown on you, and I would like cut you out.

• 26:57Bunnie XO?

  Did you always have your sassy sense of humor?

• 26:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:59Bunnie XO?

  Ever since childhood?

• 27:01Speaker 01

  I always used to get put out of class and school because of my mouth.

• 27:04Bunnie XO?

  Cause, yeah.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  It's so funny to me, because I'm like, now I get paid for it.

• 27:08Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. I'm sorry, I got something stuck on my foot over here. My whole life's falling apart over here. Um, so you were pretty much like the class clown?

• 27:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:16Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I don't.

• 27:17Bunnie XO?

  But it's because you came from such a dark beginnings, that if you don't learn to laugh and have some sort of fucking humor, you're going, it's gonna eat you alive.

• 27:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:25Bunnie XO?

  It's gonna swallow you.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  And I think that is, the best comedians out there are the ones that come from trauma, you know? And I tell people all the time that, you know, I realized, the reason that I'm successful is because I saw my mom, and I saw, I remember one night, we lived, like I said, we lived in, in the projects, and we were laying in bed one night, and I just heard people arguing, like where are, we had one, we had a one bedroom apartment, so we slept in the same room, and um, like outside of our window was right out to like the staircase that went down to the next level, and I heard these people fighting outside, and it was two guys and a girl, and they were fighting, and then they started shooting each other.

• 28:00Bunnie XO?

  Geez.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  And my mom opened the window, and she puts her head out the window, and she's like, I got a baby trying to sleep in here. My mama was a thug. Like, I mean, long red fingernails, wore gold rings on every finger, gold chain necklaces, and she would fight. She beat up my fourth grade teacher in a parent teacher conference.

• 28:20Bunnie XO?

  Over what? Over what?

• 28:21Speaker 01

  Because, uh, my, my, I was pretending to smoke a cigarette with a cheeto. And, um, I didn't want to get in trouble, so I lied to my mom. I was like, I didn't do that. So my mom, like, believed everything I told her. And my mom, I still have the planner. I just posted a YouTube video of it where her and my mom are like arguing back and forth in my planner. And my mom's like, Matt did not pretend to smoke a cigarette with a cheeto and did not deserve to be put on red. Cause I got put on red that day.

• 28:45Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  And my teacher wrote back and she was like, yes, he did. He admitted it. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. She was like, I want to have a parent teacher conference. And my mom was like, that's fine. Bet, you know? So we get to the conference and I'm in the back of the room crying. And my mom is there with a white wife beater tank top, her fake Louis Vuitton purse, like, all of her gold rings, her nails. And she went to say something and my teacher put her finger in her face.

• 29:09Bunnie XO?

  Oh, fuck.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  And she was like, shh. Now I see where Matt gets his disrespect from. And my mom stood up and she put her purse on the ground and she grabbed her by the back of her head. And she pulled her out of the, over the chair and she starts beating the shit out of her. And that, I mean, my mom would fight. Like, she would fight anybody.

• 29:27Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, and this is before people called the cops on people.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, she did go to jail. But, um, and then she beat the shit out of a Walmart greeter one time. Cause the lady asked to see the receipt for the rug that she just stole. I mean, I did, it was just like.

• 29:39Bunnie XO?

  I kind of love moms.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  Uh, she was crazy as hell. And it's, it's funny because growing up, I hated her. Because of just her addiction.

• 29:46Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  And now as I look back at her, I'm like, man, she loved me so fiercely. She did. She just had so many demons and she didn't have anybody to help her. You know, she didn't know how to battle those demons and how to succeed and win.

• 30:00Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  Um, but now I look back and I'm like, man, she did the best she knew how, you know? And she loved me so much, but she just didn't, she didn't know, she didn't know how to, how to be a mom, really, you know? And that, that's what ultimately, you know, her addiction is, her addiction won, but, and that's why I'm so. So like open about mental health and addiction because people don't realize how, how strong that that has on that stronghold that it has on people. It's it's such a thing that it swept under the rug.

• 30:30Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  And had she had help, had she had somebody to, you know, walk her through.

• 30:36Bunnie XO?

  Her trauma.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  Her trauma, and she had a lot of trauma. So it's like, she didn't have good relationships with her parents. And so it's like, had she had someone to help her, things could have been totally different for her.

• 30:47Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. Isn't it crazy as we get older that we can see our parents through that lens? Because I grew up hating my entire family so much that I got to spend the last years of each one of my parents' life, I left home at 14, and I got to forgive them for the childhood that I had. And then when I saw just how sad and unhealed they were, it was almost like, I was like, it like freed up my heart.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:14Bunnie XO?

  Because I was just like, you know what?

• 31:16Speaker 01

  You can't be angry anymore.

• 31:17Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, it's like you you become their parent in a way. And you're just kind of like, man, you know, like this, you were put here on this earth to teach me this lesson. And to be able to look at it through the lens that you're looking at it is super beautiful.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  Well, and the crazy thing to me is I don't regret a single minute of it. Because maybe if I had a cooker cutty lock cooker cut, damn, I just had a stroke. Cooker cutter.

• 31:44Bunnie XO?

  Cookie cutter.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  God damn. What is, am I? Am I slow? If I had a cookie cutter life, I probably wouldn't be the person I am. You know, I probably wouldn't be successful. Like, I would, I would probably be just like my siblings.

• 32:00Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, that's how I feel too, because my little sister got to live, and I very, very rarely talk about my little sister because I still try to protect her. But she got to live the childhood that I never got with both parents together. Going to prom, my dad taking her to prom, never, never having chores and like being abused the way I was. And she's a mess. She's a drug addict. She's, she's not okay.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  I think when you see what it can do to a person and what it can, how it can ruin their lives and take everything from them, you know, that was my thing was I made a promise to myself the night that my mom stuck her head out that window and yelled at the people shooting each other. I, I literally, I thought this is the night that we're gonna die. I thought that. And I remember thinking, I will not be like the rest of my family. I will not have this for myself. I will never live like this. And I promised myself that if I ever have to ask somebody for money, if I ever have to ask somebody for anything, I don't want it.

• 32:55Bunnie XO?

  Hyperindependence is a trauma response.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  It's a trauma response. Yeah. And, and now another trauma response that we've been talking about is so there's a, there's actually a something, I don't know the name, bitch, I can't even say cookie, but, but there is a, it's a trauma response of so scared of being poor again. You know, like, and that is something that I struggle with every day is now I make good money. I make a good living. I work my ass off and I'm so terrified of being poor again because of that trauma.

• 33:24Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. No, it's, I don't know what it's called either, but I, you and I have bonded over that is I feel the same exact way. Like I will stuff fucking, I took my, my husband literally fucking was like, bitch, you need to get an accountant. Like you need a bookkeeper. It took me so long to let somebody into my money because I was just like, you know, just held it so close to my chest. And being in this business, you have to have somebody that's managing your fucking money because you can't do it yourself.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  I, I got in so much trouble because I would have all of the money that I made in my bank account.

• 33:56Bunnie XO?

  Me too.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  Like, I mean, I'd have all of that money in one account. And when I hired my business manager, he was like, what the fuck are you doing?

• 34:04Bunnie XO?

  Same. And they put it in like five different accounts.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. And he's like, you do realize that the bank can only guarantee you like $275,000. And I'm like, what about all this money? He's like, you're fucked if something happened to the bank. I'm like, oh.

• 34:18Bunnie XO?

  Yep.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  You know, I don't know that.

• 34:20Bunnie XO?

  They don't teach you that.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  They don't teach you that in school.

• 34:21Bunnie XO?

  They should teach you that. And I feel like they should teach you a credit class. They should teach you a fucking like home fucking like, he's over here sawing logs dude. They should teach you like how to like run your business in school. You shouldn't have to go to college and take a

• 34:35Speaker 01

  I learned nothing in school.

• 34:36Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, me either, me either.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Like, I mean.

• 34:38Bunnie XO?

  I learned division.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  Eh eh, yeah.

• 34:40Bunnie XO?

  Multiplication that I don't use for anything.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  That we don't use. It is absolutely insane to me that I'm like, what was even the point?

• 34:47Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, no, for sure. Moving on real quick though, I want to talk to you. It says that you started nursing school before trading your scrubs for a camera and you bought that camera with your graduation money.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:58Bunnie XO?

  Take me on that journey because you ended up building an empire, doing something that is very unlikely. I did not see

• 35:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, you didn't know that. We didn't talk about that.

• 35:05Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, I did not see this coming.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I, when I was seventeen, I got a job at Walmart Portrait Studios. I co-opted in school, which means I got to leave school early to go to work. So I had to have a job and I applied at Walmart Portrait Studios, you know, like clicking a little thing and taking pictures of people, like Sears, you know?

• 35:22Bunnie XO?

  How fun though.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  Eh eh, as a seventeen year old making eight fifty an hour, like they close at six o'clock. You don't have to work Sundays. Like I was like, this is everything. Cause all my friends were waiting tables.

• 35:32Bunnie XO?

  That's a moment in time too, because they don't do that shit anymore.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  They don't do it anymore. Yeah. And so I started to do that. And again, I told you my mom, not my biological mom, but my mom was a nurse anesthetist. So she put people to sleep for surgeries. So I saw how successful she was and I saw like the life that she had and I was like, that's, that's what I'm gonna do. I always wanted to be an entertainer. But I never, I always wanted to do music. I always wanted to entertain, but I never pursued that. Cause I didn't think

• 36:00Bunnie XO?

  Did you sing as a child?

• 36:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So I always sang. I sang in the talent shows and like, I remember my dad used to take me to this redneck bar every Tuesday and I would sing karaoke.

• 36:10Bunnie XO?

  I love the bonding.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, a bar.

• 36:12Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, that's my husband. His dad used to take him to bars.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:15Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  So he would take me to a bar every Tuesday night and I would sing karaoke and it became like this thing and people would start, people started to come to the bar on Tuesdays to hear me sing. And I remember my little gay ass was up there singing Martina McBride, you know, Broken Wing.

• 36:28Bunnie XO?

  That's a hard one.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, and

• 36:31Bunnie XO?

  Can you sing it?

• 36:32Speaker 01

  I mean, probably not now.

• 36:34Bunnie XO?

  You know I'm gonna put you on the spot.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  At that point, I could sing, you know, like, and I remember I went to a talent show.

• 36:41Bunnie XO?

  Not now.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  I mean, I mean, I still got a little chops, but I was just so terrified, you know, like, I didn't, I didn't know, like, I never took vocal lessons. I never, I was just singing, you know?

• 36:52Bunnie XO?

  Try it yourself, self-taught.

• 36:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, and my dad took me every Tuesday and it was just a thing and we, we just loved it. And I would, I would sing those songs because that's what my mom listened to, you know? And so, what was we talking about?

• 37:08Bunnie XO?

  We were talking about taking the pictures too.

• 37:09Speaker 01

  Taking the pictures. So I got a job at Walmart and I knew that I always wanted to do music or I wanted to do entertainment. And I was too scared to pursue that because I thought that was way too out of the, the possibilities of things that were going to happen for me. That I, I'm not in an area where I'll ever get to do anything in that, in that space. But I've always been like this outlandish personality. I've always been goofy. I've always been musical. I taught myself how to play guitar. I taught myself how to play piano, like all of these things. And so I got that job and I just really enjoyed it. And so when I graduated high school, I took all the graduation money and I went to Sam's Club. And I bought a Canon Rebel kit, like the kit, lens, the, the cameras and everything. And I just started doing photography and I didn't, I wasn't good at it at first, obviously, but I got really good.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  And I started doing weddings and I was a wedding photographer for several years and.

• 37:59Bunnie XO?

  What's one of the craziest weddings that you've had, like a crazy wedding story?

• 38:02Speaker 01

  A mom and a bride got in a fistfight during their getting ready photos. And I was like.

• 38:08Bunnie XO?

  The actual mother?

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Yes, she was beating the shit out of her. We, we flying everywhere. I was like, oh shit, we be wondering, come through. I was like, this, this ain't it. And I was like, y'all can run me my check. Because I don't get paid enough for this. So I remember I was like, this is not for me, you know? I don't want to do this anymore. I'm in the South where every weekend I'm in the heat, like dying of heat stroke. And I had a bride ask me to take pictures of her in lingerie. And I was like, bitch, I don't know how to do that. Like, are you, what? But I did and they became like the most, they were the most beautiful photos. And I was like, okay. She was like, I feel so pretty. And I was like, oh, okay.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  And she got a big picture of, of one of the photos printed and put in her bedroom. And I was like, okay. So I started doing boudoir photography. And I was, I did that and it started really blowing up and like really doing really, really well for me. And so I quit weddings.

• 39:09Bunnie XO?

  Did it blow up from word of mouth or like, were you online?

• 39:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, this was well before I like got into, you know, TikTok or like this is, this is like 2015 era, 2014, 2015. So my husband and I bought our first house 2015 and it had this 300 square foot room on the back and I made it a studio. And I started my boudoir business there. I had nothing but a bed and I hung a chandelier over the bed and I had a little white couch.

• 39:35Bunnie XO?

  Chandelier makes everything look better.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 39:37Bunnie XO?

  I will add a chandelier to every fucking room in my house if I can.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Yep. And it just, I was, I never grew up loving my body. You know, I was always very self-conscious. I would swim with a shirt on, you know, like.

• 39:49Bunnie XO?

  You have a great figure.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  I was, but I was always a chunky kid, you know? And, and even, even though I'm smaller now, like I, you know, I still got, I ain't got no abs, right? And, and like that's what I, you know, I never, never loved my body. Always very critical of myself. Didn't love what I saw in the mirror. And so I started photographing women and showing them how beautiful they were. And they were in lingerie and they were in sheets and it was like, kind of taboo at the time, but it blew up. And people were like, I've never felt so beautiful. Like you just showed me a side that I've never seen before.

• 40:22Bunnie XO?

  Is it true that you gave your mom a boudoir shoot? How fun was that?

• 40:27Speaker 01

  So in 2014, for her birthday, I was like, Mom, she never loved her body. So I was like, let me photograph you. And I photographed a boudoir session for her and she was like, I've never felt so beautiful. And after that, it lit a fire in me. And I just, I just started doing boudoir full-time. I got really, really good. I started teaching workshops. I started speaking at conventions and it just like blew up. It was absolutely insane.

• 40:55Bunnie XO?

  I want to see some of your work.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll show you. Yeah.

• 40:57Bunnie XO?

  I would love that. Cause I love boudoirs. That's how I got here. Was it, I was an Instagram thought.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  Okay. So you know what's so funny? I've seen like the photos of you and I'm like, when I, I was like, if I could have photographed her when I was a boudoir photographer?

• 41:10Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. That would have been, dude, we would have made magic. We could do it.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  Wait, what if I came out of retirement?

• 41:16Bunnie XO?

  I'll come out of retirement to let you shoot me.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  What if we come out of retirement together?

• 41:19Bunnie XO?

  Let's fucking do it.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 41:22Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  That would be, that would, we'd break the internet.

• 41:26Bunnie XO?

  Dude, I'm ready.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  So that's what happened for me on TikTok was I started showing me photographing clients on TikTok.

• 41:33Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  I posted a video and it got seventeen million views.

• 41:36Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  And I was like, I, I, it was me like picking a client's hips up. And I was like, we did this pose called the titty crusher.

• 41:43Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  And I'd have them lay completely flat on the ground. And then I would like have to help them walk their knees up underneath them and put their butt in the air.

• 41:49Bunnie XO?

  Oh, yeah. I do that pose all the time.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. And like stagger their feet.

• 41:52Bunnie XO?

  That's the Carmen Electra pose.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Oh, did you see it? Yeah.

• 41:57Bunnie XO?

  Pull it up. Can we pull it up? Let's, let's pull it up and see it really quick.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  And it got like seventeen million views.

• 42:03Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  And it, it like went crazy.

• 42:07Bunnie XO?

  So was that your first viral video?

• 42:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was my very first viral video.

• 42:11Bunnie XO?

  That's your first, it's a virality, right? That's crazy.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  And I was booking so much and I was making a ton of money. I started my, I opened my first studio downtown. Like, it was insane. Um, and it was incredible, you know? I, I mean, people were coming, other photographers were coming to learn from me and it was just.

• 42:30Bunnie XO?

  It probably gave you such a purpose, though, because not only are you making these women feel beautiful, but you're also creating art and you're like, I don't know, you're just like in charge, it's your business, like.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:40Bunnie XO?

  It's got to be so fulfilling.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I felt so good making people feel so good. That was like the big thing to me.

• 42:47Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  I remember I had a client come in and she had had a double mastectomy and I photographed her and like before her reconstruction. And she was like, oh, my God, like I, like I'm beautiful. And I'm like, yeah, you are, you know, like seeing them come in. Being so timid, not loving their body, not feeling comfortable and seeing them walk out with their head high was just like, oh, man. It gives me tools to think about it because like. I love that, that part of my life. Like, I love that journey still.

• 43:17Bunnie XO?

  Would you ever, like, once all of this, you know, the touring and the music and all that comes to an end, would you ever like, think of like, maybe just redoing it?

• 43:25Speaker 01

  Well, so we still have. We still have my boudoir business and my associate Brianna, who's been with me for eight years. She still photographs clients.

• 43:34Bunnie XO?

  Oh, wow.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  And it's still under my name. It's still my studio and, you know, her work looks identical to mine. And so she still shoots. So like, we still have that business and it's, it's amazing. And I was like, we worked so hard to build that. I was like, just because I'm touring and doing all the things now, we're not letting that go. Um, so it was, it was just really, it was a really cool thing. But deep down, there was something missing.

• 43:59Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  You know, and I was like, I wanna, I wanna be on stage, you know, like, I wanna, I wanted to sing. And, but I still never pursued that. And what started to happen for me was TikTok started deleting my videos.

• 44:15Bunnie XO?

  Because of the boudoir?

• 44:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:16Bunnie XO?

  They just did another fucking community upline update.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I saw.

• 44:20Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, I'm like.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  And they were, they had started deleting everything that I was posting.

• 44:24Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  For community guidelines and adult nudity, even though nobody was ever nude. And so I was like, I had built a following of like, 2 million at that point. And I was like, I don't want to lose my account, you know, like, what do I do? So I quit posting. So from then I pivoted and I started doing how to take sexy selfies. So I'd be like, put your phone up, put it on a video, and I would show them how to pose. And I'd be like, now screenshot that hoe and send it out, you know? And then that started blowing up. And everybody was like, oh, my God, your personality.

• 44:54Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  And so then I was like, okay, well, they're gonna delete everything I'm posting, so I'll pivot again. So I pivoted to start showing my personal life, which was my farm.

• 45:03Bunnie XO?

  That's how we are as hustlers, coming up from the backgrounds that we did, is like, you're always gonna figure out a way.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  Figure it out. Yeah, absolutely. So I was like, okay, so where do we go now? So I was like, all right, so I'll pivot to farm. I'll start showing my farm and my ridiculous life of, I'm out in this robe every day cussing these chickens out. I'll start showing it to people.

• 45:23Bunnie XO?

  Was this during COVID?

• 45:24Speaker 01

  During COVID.

• 45:25Bunnie XO?

  Okay, yeah.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  The first, and I remember like, the first video got, had, I mean, it got like,

• 45:29Bunnie XO?

  13 million.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  13 million views. And I gained over a half a million followers overnight. And I was like,

• 45:35Bunnie XO?

  The crazy thing is, is like you had never hit my FYP until people started tagging you. And now your shit is all over my fucking FYP. Like it is, I can't scroll without seeing something from you or somebody tagging you in something. Or like, it's, it's crazy how much people just love you.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  Well, they love you just as much.

• 45:53Bunnie XO?

  Well, I appreciate it. Well, they love to hate me and they hate to love me.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  Well, same. I mean, I think it's, I think that's anybody that's in the industry, you know? Like especially when somebody you don't know that somebody's, somebody that's successful. You know, like if somebody has success, people always want to shit on that.

• 46:09Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, it's always the ones who I would never trade lives with that have bad things to say. There is so much more love than there is hate.

• 46:15Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah. And it's just a really cool feeling. And I, I, I remember seeing comments of people saying, you made me smile. You made me laugh when I haven't laughed in weeks.

• 46:28Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  You made me, you brightened my day. And then again, same feeling of, of, as boudoir, I was like, that made me feel good that I made somebody feel good.

• 46:36Bunnie XO?

  I've been needing new glasses forever and it's just one of those things I keep putting off. So I finally went on Zinni to pick out a new pair. I'm going with these black rectangle glasses that are really similar to the ones I already wear. Because listen, I know what I like. They're classic, they go with everything and I'm excited to get them. Zinni has frames starting from under $30. And I love that you can use their virtual try on to see what different frames look like before you order. You just find a pair you love, enter your prescription, customize your lenses and they'll ship them right to your door. Zinni is truly the easiest way to shop for stylish prescription glasses without the headache. Backed by over 150,000 five star reviews. Check new glasses off your list today with Zinni.

• 47:18Bunnie XO?

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• 47:38Bunnie XO?

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• 48:23Bunnie XO?

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• 48:45Speaker 01

  And so everybody was like, Matt, you have to do, you have to do comedy. You have to do comedy. You have to be a comedian. I'd never watched comedy. I'd never, you know, never watched stand-up. It was never something that I wanted to do. Like, I wanted to do music.

• 48:58Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  And, but I was like, I'm never gonna pursue music. It's never gonna be something that I do.

• 49:03Bunnie XO?

  Why did you think that you just couldn't do it?

• 49:05Speaker 01

  I just didn't think I was good enough.

• 49:06Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  So I was like, this is the next best thing.

• 49:10Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  I'll be on stage, I'll be performing, and I'm doing something that's easy for me, which is making people laugh.

• 49:15Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  So I decided-

• 49:17Bunnie XO?

  Being a stand-up comedian is not easy, though.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  Oh, but it is horrid. It is horrid, you know?

• 49:22Bunnie XO?

  Like, it's fucking, you gotta command a crowd. I think that's harder than singing.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  Oh, 100%.

• 49:27Bunnie XO?

  You have to like really wow a crowd with your fucking humor. And if a fucking joke doesn't land, that's your neck.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  Yes. And but what's so funny to me is it's the easiest thing I've ever done.

• 49:37Bunnie XO?

  Aww.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  It is the, I mean, it is, I can get on a stage in front of thousands of people that I don't know and make them laugh. And for me, it's all about, we all struggle with something. And to make somebody come into a room and to sit down in a room with thousands of people that you don't know, and watch this ridiculous man on stage tell you stories and forget about the bullshit outside for 90 minutes of your day, that's what it's about for me.

• 50:04Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  And so I decided to try stand up. And at this point, I'd already had pretty decent following online and from my boudoir videos and from my farm chores. So I decided to give it a shot. And the very first show that I ever did, it sold out in two minutes. And I was like, what the fuck? Like, I don't even know what I'm doing. I've never done this. I never opened.

• 50:26Bunnie XO?

  I was gonna say, you didn't practice?

• 50:28Speaker 01

  No, never opened mics, never. I opened for two, the comedy club in my hometown. They were like, hey, let's have you come in, you can open up for two comics. I had five minutes for the first one. I had 10 minutes for the second one. That's all I'd ever done.

• 50:40Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  And then I did my own show and sold it out. And I was like, what the fuck am I gonna do? I didn't know. So I got up there and just started running my mouth. And they were-

• 50:48Bunnie XO?

  Didn't have anything planned? Nothing?

• 50:50Speaker 01

  No.

• 50:51Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 50:52Speaker 01

  Cause when I-

• 50:52Bunnie XO?

  That's balls.

• 50:53Speaker 01

  When I opened, it was horrible because I had like memorized this fucking Easter speech. You know, like, it wasn't good because I had like this monologue that I memorized.

• 51:03Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  And then I was like, fuck this, I'm just gonna say whatever comes to my mind. And I'll never forget, like, I had a lady come, a lady like, this is the first time I'd ever done this, mind you.

• 51:12Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  I had a, and I'd never watched stand up, so I didn't really know what to do. But I remember this lady had this big blonde hair and it was like huge. And she got up in the middle of the show, went to the bathroom, and I said, Teresa Caputo, where the fuck are you going? And I just remember everybody like falling out of their chairs. And I was like, ooh, I got them, you know? And that's really kind of when like the crowd work kind of was really flowing, you know?

• 51:39Bunnie XO?

  I've seen your crowd work. It's fucking hilarious.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  And the comedy club guy, he was like, you look like you've been doing this for 20 years. He was like, we're gonna give you another show in our big room. It holds 420 people and it sold out in a minute. And I was like, what in the hell? So I started, I signed with an independent agent and I started my first tour. Sold over 150,000 tickets on my very first tour, never doing stand up.

• 52:01Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  Which was insane to me.

• 52:03Bunnie XO?

  That's amazing.

• 52:03Speaker 01

  It was such a blessing.

• 52:04Bunnie XO?

  But that's a testament of who you are and how you make people feel.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  And that was the biggest thing, you know, like I still to this day, I go read reviews because I'm like, I shouldn't, you know? Cause like, I know not everybody's gonna like me.

• 52:16Bunnie XO?

  We're all self sacrificing in that way. We want to know what people are thinking.

• 52:19Speaker 01

  And it's not because I go do that or read those things because I want to see what people are saying negatively or they think that I'm the best out there. But it's, is there anything I should work on? You know, is there something that I'm doing that people don't like?

• 52:31Bunnie XO?

  Constructive criticism.

• 52:32Speaker 01

  And I did that. I signed with my first big agency and signed my first deal with Live Nation for my second tour.

• 52:43Speaker 01

  Then it just kept going. I just, you know, I just left my, my other agency and went to WME.

• 52:51Bunnie XO?

  I'm so happy you're with us. Welcome to WME, baby. I was so happy to see that announcement.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:58Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, I was really excited for you.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  It's, it's still crazy to me that I came from a trailer park, you know what I mean?

• 53:06Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 53:06Speaker 01

  And I think that's the, that's the coolest part.

• 53:08Bunnie XO?

  I literally brought my best friend and her mom here to live with me in Nashville that let me move into their trailer when I was 14 years old because I just. Love them so much and they're my chosen family. And now that I've made it, I want them to make it too. So it's like, I, I think when we get to a certain point of where we're at, now it's just about giving back. And that's what you're doing. And that's why it keeps coming back to you tenfold because you're making people feel good. And even if you're calling somebody Teresa Caputo, they're fucking laughing, you know, because it's fucking funny and it's feel good.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  And, and that's the thing too, is like, I'm roasting the fuck out of these people at my shows.

• 53:45Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  Right. But to me, it's weird, and I'm very offensive in my shows. You know, I say things that people normally aren't going to say. I make fun of special needs people. I make fun of regular people. I make fun of black people. I make fun of white people. I make fun of gay people. I make fun of everybody because I feel like we're in such a dark world.

• 54:03Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  And everybody's so offended about everything.

• 54:06Bunnie XO?

  Everything.

• 54:06Speaker 01

  That if we can't laugh about it, then what do we do?

• 54:09Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 54:09Speaker 01

  We cry about it, you know? So I'm like, let's laugh about it and, and realize that we don't have to be so offended about everything.

• 54:16Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely.

• 54:17Speaker 01

  We can laugh about things and we can be united and we can realize that like, it's not that deep.

• 54:24Bunnie XO?

  When you're not laughing, what is, what's a bad day for Matt?

• 54:28Speaker 01

  A bad day for me?

• 54:29Bunnie XO?

  How do you handle it? Because I know not everything's fucking roses and butterflies.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  No, of course not. I think this, and again, this, I say this, like, I hate even saying it because I feel such like a little bitch saying this. Because I'm successful and I've, I've made my dreams come true.

• 54:48Bunnie XO?

  That doesn't mean that you don't have feelings.

• 54:51Speaker 01

  But people would die to be in the spot, right?

• 54:54Bunnie XO?

  Of course.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  And the hardest part for me is being lonely. You know what I mean? Because like, I don't have a lot of friends and people think, you know, I'm this big extrovert and I just like, I go, I'm the life of the party. And I go and do all, and I'm not, you know, like, and I don't have a lot of friends. Like, I think that's the hardest thing for me is I will get really lonely. And there was a day that I realized I was off tour and I realized that my phone didn't ring all day. Unless it was an agent or a manager.

• 55:23Bunnie XO?

  Somebody needing something from you.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  And I was like, That really sucks. You know, like that was really hard. That was a hard pill for me to swallow. You know, my biological mom's dead, my mom's dead. I have my husband, who's my best friend, you know, he really is my rock, you know, and like we have the best relationship. I have a great relationship with my dad, but that's really all I have, you know? And I don't have, I mean, I have Kale and now I have you.

• 55:50Bunnie XO?

  You have me.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  And you know, but it's like.

• 55:52Bunnie XO?

  I will always text back, even if it's later.

• 55:54Speaker 01

  And you and I have had this discussion of like, don't think I'm not showing up eh on a random day and we're having a fucking pajama party. Like, but it's like Kale lives in Delaware.

• 56:04Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, which Kale, who the fuck lives?

• 56:06Speaker 01

  Lives in Delaware.

• 56:06Bunnie XO?

  Lives in Delaware.

• 56:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, like the two or three good, my, my, my best friend Fallon lives in Texas, you know? So it's like, the two or three really close friends that I have aren't near me.

• 56:17Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  So it's like, it's really, that part's lonely, like the industry is lonely. Yeah, we're living our dreams, but it's hard to let people in because you don't trust people because they just want to use you.

• 56:28Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  And a lot of people in our industry are assholes. So I think that's why I was so excited when we clicked because I was like, man, it's so nice to have somebody that you can talk to that's in this industry that understands how you feel.

• 56:41Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 56:42Speaker 01

  And you know, that is, that is in the same, that can understand the loneliness of it.

• 56:48Bunnie XO?

  Oh, absolutely.

• 56:49Speaker 01

  But it's also like, you don't want to, you don't want to bitch and sound ungrateful because you are, but at the same time.

• 56:55Bunnie XO?

  That doesn't mean that you, you're not human, you know? And just because you are successful, and I think that's where a lot of people on the internet are like, oh, you have all that, you have this fame, you have money. Everything's fucking great. More money, more fucking problems.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:07Bunnie XO?

  Like people don't understand that. Me and my husband talk about it all the time. And it's like, you literally get secluded on this little island of people's, half the people you don't like, half the people you don't want to talk to. And you have like, maybe a small percentage of people that you can be around and that's, it's not.

• 57:25Bunnie XO?

  A bad thing for you to feel lonely, but you don't ever have to feel lonely. You can always text me. But I had like, I literally have my crew and that's it. Like, I don't let anybody else in either because you can't fucking trust people. People aren't so untrustworthy. And the one time you do something wrong, they go straight to the fucking internet.

• 57:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 57:40Bunnie XO?

  You know, clout chasers.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:42Bunnie XO?

  What's the craziest rumor you've ever heard about yourself?

• 57:46Speaker 01

  Um, my husband and I divorced. That like, that was an MSN article the other day was I was divorced. My, my, Matt Matthews and husband divorced and I'm like, we literally just built a house. Like, what are you talking about?

• 58:01Bunnie XO?

  I call those out. Anytime something like that gets posted.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  Oh, I posted it. I was like, are y'all on drugs?

• 58:05Bunnie XO?

  This is a lie. Yeah.

• 58:07Speaker 01

  Um, the, the craziest thing probably is that I've made up my whole life, like that it's not real.

• 58:14Bunnie XO?

  Me too. People say that about me.

• 58:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. I didn't live in a trailer park. I didn't live in the projects. My mom's not an alcoholic.

• 58:21Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  Like, I made all that up for just to get views.

• 58:23Bunnie XO?

  Literally, people tell me the same thing. I'm like, do you think that I'm gonna tell people that I was a fucking hooker? I would have been a fucking doctor if I was gonna make up my past, you know? Like, I, the, the way that people like try to shame you for your upbringing is crazy. Like, it's just wild.

• 58:41Speaker 01

  The craziest thing to me is like the AI shit now.

• 58:43Bunnie XO?

  Oh, that shit's weird. That shit's so weird.

• 58:46Speaker 01

  People are like taking videos of me and they'll, people are getting scammed thousands of dollars. This lady came to my show the other day and she's sitting like third row and she's like, hey, and I'm like, hey. She goes, it's me. And I'm like, it's you? There's a video on my Instagram. I was like, what? I was like, are you, are you okay? And she's like, it's me. And I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? She had been talking to somebody this whole time and she thought she was talking to me because they're using AI videos. And you can see like, like, it was actually a cameo that I had done for someone and they had used AI to change what I was saying.

• 59:26Bunnie XO?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  And I'm like, this is the craziest shit. How is that legal?

• 59:30Bunnie XO?

  But first of all, how do people fall for this? Because it doesn't look real.

• 59:35Speaker 01

  No, it doesn't.

• 59:36Bunnie XO?

  People get scammed all the time from Jelly and Bunny accounts also. And I feel so bad for you guys. Like, if I, one, I will never ask you for money.

• 59:43Speaker 01

  Never.

• 59:43Bunnie XO?

  Two, never send money to anybody, ever. But.

• 59:48Bunnie XO?

  Please pay attention.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:50Bunnie XO?

  Because you can tell when shit's not fucking real. You know, like.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  I hate when I post something on Facebook and every single time somebody comments, Matt Matthews private, Matt Matthews fan.

• 1:00:01Bunnie XO?

  I block them.

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  I block them too, but you can't, like, there's so many.

• 1:00:05Bunnie XO?

  So many, I know.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  I could hire somebody full time to sit there and block accounts.

• 1:00:09Bunnie XO?

  I know.

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  It is insane.

• 1:00:10Bunnie XO?

  And now they have these new accounts that are on Facebook that are like news outlets, but they're not really news outlets. Like, they literally, one had the fucking TikTok in her uproar, saying that my husband said that he hates gay pride and all this other stuff. And it's like, my husband never said that. And people really believe this shit. Yesterday, they said that I was attacking Sydney Sweeney because of her jeans out or something like that. And I'm like, are you guys fucking morons? And there's like a thousand comments up.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  And they believe it.

• 1:00:37Bunnie XO?

  Oh, yeah. We're not taking advice from a hooker. And like, didn't she used to sell her ass? And I'm like, yeah, to your dad, Mike. You know, it's like.

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  And still made more money than you, ho.

• 1:00:46Bunnie XO?

  Literally. And people just fucking stop. Just stop believing everything that you read on the fucking internet.

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  It is absolutely insane to me.

• 1:00:53Bunnie XO?

  In the business that you're in, do you always feel like you have to be on?

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:58Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:58Speaker 01

  Like, when I meet somebody, if somebody comes up to me in public for a picture, or they stop me, like, I feel like I ha- number one, I will never say no.

• 1:01:10Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:10Speaker 01

  And I will never be ugly to anybody, because if it weren't for those people, I would not be here.

• 1:01:14Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:14Speaker 01

  So I'm so thankful for them. But at the same time, I know that they expect me to be farm chores, or they expect me to be the comedian on stage. And I tell people, I'm like, I am, when I'm on stage, it's a part of who I am. Like, that is who I am. That really is me. But it's just a part of who I am. And I'm performing, you know? Like, that is a performance. When I'm on that stage, I am performing. This is not a conference. You know what I mean? I'm not just reading a script. I am performing.

• 1:01:47Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:01:47Speaker 01

  And so when you meet me in the grocery store. I'm not gonna be that ridiculous. You know what I mean? So, I do feel like I have to be on a lot.

• 1:01:56Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  And that is, that's, you know, nobody's ever gonna say that I was rude to them.

• 1:02:01Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:02:02Speaker 01

  But they may say like, oh, he wasn't the same in person.

• 1:02:04Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  Cause maybe I don't, you know, that's the big thing that people say about me on the internet is that I talk black. I try to talk black and I'm like,

• 1:02:11Bunnie XO?

  You're a southern gay man.

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  I'm southern and I'm gay as hell. Like, and I was raising the projects and I did go to an all-black church. I was the only, you know, but then they're like, oh, well, your accent changes. Okay, well, I can talk like this or I can talk like this, you know?

• 1:02:25Bunnie XO?

  But it sounds the same to me.

• 1:02:27Speaker 01

  It's like, it's our customer service voice.

• 1:02:29Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:02:30Speaker 01

  I tell people, if you don't have different voices from when you're hanging out with your best friends or when you're, you know, doing an interview.

• 1:02:36Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  Then you need to learn how to do an interview voice so that you can get a fucking job.

• 1:02:40Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:02:40Speaker 01

  You know, like, so that's the, that's the crazy thing to me is I'm like, why would I act to be, why would I, you can only hold a, a false person or like this personality for so long.

• 1:02:55Bunnie XO?

  Oh, I tell everybody, I'm like, listen, I love you. What you see on the internet is me in the comfort of my own home and my own studio. In person, I am shy, I'm quiet, I have anxiety. You're judging me. I know you are as soon as you walk up to me and ask for a picture. So I'm like, if I'm not who I am online, just know that it's just, I'm very more, I'm a lot more reserved in person. I just don't set people up for failure. I'm like, look, it's, you're gonna be disappointed.

• 1:03:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:19Bunnie XO?

  Don't expect much, you'll be disappointed.

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  What kills me is when they come up to me and they're like, get up, it's time to do farm chores. And I'm like, that is the cringiest thing to me. I'm like, please, or they'll be like, did you do farm chores today? I'm like, no bitch, I'm off. Like, I'm at a comedy show. What the fuck? Do you think, I'm in Seattle. Do you think I did farm chores? That is, that part makes me cringe, cause I'm just like, but I mean, it's like, I'm sure people, I'm sure people will come up to you and, you know, like, any kind of, any kind of like,

• 1:03:53Bunnie XO?

  What do they say? What do they say? What is it that they, oh, the, I still confess.

• 1:03:58Bunnie XO?

  Cause I do. What? Math space. They whistle. So I do this thing where I'm like, I, we have another segment called Ask Tell Confess. Okay. I've literally had Ask Tell Confess since I had my Instagram 10 years ago, but we just moved it to our platform about a year ago. And so the opening, I'm always like, welcome to Ask Tell Confess. So I say that, so people, people come up to me all the time and that's what they do. I can't do it.

• 1:04:25Bunnie XO?

  Did I do it?

• 1:04:27Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. You did it. Hey. You did it.

• 1:04:33Bunnie XO?

  Ask Tell Confess. So yeah, that's what they come up and say to me. Yeah. And it makes you cringe, don't it? I mean, I'm just like, I'm not doing it right now. Like I'll do it whenever I have to film fucking five in a row. Yeah. Let's talk about your music because I know that Jewel actually had a really big impact on your music career, which you and I had this conversation. And should I even tell the story or no? Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. So. And listen, Jewel, you're a beautiful human. I have always looked up to you. This was just a moment in time and I completely understand where she was coming from now that I live the life that I live.

• 1:05:11Bunnie XO?

  When I met Jewel, this was when The Palms was huge in Vegas and I think I was like leaving fucking Ghost Bar or something. It was in the middle of the night, two o'clock in the morning. She is walking in the casino by herself. And I'm walking out of this club and I see Jewel. And then this is like when she was fucking huge and like, I couldn't believe it. And I was just like, oh my God, Jewel. And she was like, you know, like she had gotten caught. And I was just like, hey, can we take a picture? And she was like, rolled her eyes and goes, one picture right now, right here. And I was like, you know what? It's okay. And I ended up leaving her and I left that. That encounter with her, for the longest time, for years, I was like, dude, Jewel was a bitch,

• 1:05:54Bunnie XO?

  you know, but now that I'm in this lifestyle and I, she could have been going through a fucking divorce in the middle of this fucking casino. She could have been on her period. She could have been fucking, there could have been a million things that were going on, you know? Granted, she could have been a little nicer, but when you told me your story about how much she helped you, I was like, oh, maybe she does have a heart, you know?

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  Well, and that's kind of why I said, I will never be ugly to a fan.

• 1:06:21Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  I mean, let me never say never, because you might catch me on the right motherfucking time, you know? But I really try to never be ugly because

• 1:06:31Bunnie XO?

  And it's hard. There's sometimes you'll be in tears and people will come up to you and you have to like suck it up.

• 1:06:37Speaker 01

  Okay, hi, how are you? You know, but they remember that for the rest of their life. You're not going to remember them, but they will remember you for the rest of their life.

• 1:06:44Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 1:06:45Speaker 01

  And

• 1:06:46Bunnie XO?

  People won't remember times or situations, but they'll remember how they, you made them feel. Yeah.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so that is, that's why I really try to always be kind. Because it costs zero dollars to be kind.

• 1:06:59Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:00Speaker 01

  And I remember I grew up, I was obsessed with Jewel.

• 1:07:03Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  Obsessed with her.

• 1:07:04Bunnie XO?

  I have the same tooth as her.

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, literally, I was, I grew up so just like, I thought she was the best artist. Like, I thought her music was just incredible. I mean, I loved her so much.

• 1:07:17Bunnie XO?

  She really is a talented artist.

• 1:07:19Speaker 01

  She's incredible. And I remember she followed me on Instagram. And I don't fangirl over people, you know, we're people. Like, it's, we just have a career that you see.

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  But I don't, so I don't fangirl over people. I don't like, you know what I mean? Like, that to me is just like, it is what it is.

• 1:07:37Bunnie XO?

  I did fangirl over Anna Nicole. She was the only one that I fangirled over when I met her.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, Anna Nicole Smith was Anna Nicole Smith. But, so I've never really fangirled over people and I was laying in bed one night and I was just scrolling and I looked at my Instagram and I saw Jewel. Blue check mark followed me and I like fell out of the bed. I was screaming. My husband was like, ran back. He was like, what's wrong? I was like, Jewel followed me. Like, she came to my hometown and did a book signing and I went to the book signing by myself, like read her. I was always a fan. And I mean, never like, I'm not a crazy bitch. Like, I'm not stalking you, that kind of fan. But I just always like really, really looked up to her as an artist. And I was like, oh, my God, she followed me. And I DM'd her.

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  And I was like, I swear I don't fangirl over people, but I just fangirled so hard. I was like, you don't know how much this means to me. And she was like, oh, I'm such a fan. And I was like, what? So

• 1:08:39Bunnie XO?

  It's like your hero telling you that she's a fan of you.

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  Literally. And she was like, gay men are my favorite. Her best friend is a gay man. And so she, we started talking, just, you know, kind of how you and I did. We just started talking back and forth. We exchanged numbers. She was like, hey, I'm playing in Rogers, Arkansas with Melissa Etheridge.

• 1:09:01Bunnie XO?

  I, Melissa's been on the podcast. I fucking love Melissa Etheridge and her wife.

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  She is so talented.

• 1:09:07Bunnie XO?

  Greatest humans.

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  I loved Melissa Etheridge as well. And so they were playing in Rogers, Arkansas at the Walmart amp. And Jewel was like, why don't you come out and sing with me? I was like, what? I was like, are you kidding me? And she was like, yeah, why don't you come out and sing with me? And I was like, absolutely. I can't turn that down. So we got on the tour bus. It was like eight o'clock at night and we drove eight hours to Rogers, Arkansas. And we got there and we'd never met in real life. We had only talked, you know, texted and things like, and voice memos and things like that. And we got there and she knocked on my door and I opened the door. She was like, you got a cup of sugar? And I was like,

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  And she came on the bus and she had her guitar and she was like, we're gonna sing this song that we didn't, she was like, I don't wanna sing a hit with you. I wanna sing a hit that's gonna, I wanna sing a song that's gonna offend people. I'm like, okay. And she's a funny bitch.

• 1:10:05Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  She's hysterical. And she was like, let's sing this song that's gonna offend everybody. And I'm like, okay. I was like, I've never heard this song before. So she gives me a piece of paper. She's like, here's the song. I'm shitting myself that I'm about to sing in front of Jewel. You know, never met her. It's not like we're best friends. And I'm about to, I'm sitting on the couch. Jewel is sitting next to me playing the guitar and I'm about to sing this song with her. And I start singing and she stopped. And she was like, she said, bitch. I was like, ma'am. What did I do? And she was like, you can fucking sing. And I was like, I like, I like sunk down into the couch. I didn't hide how much I was, I was like, I'm not hiding this. This is everything.

• 1:10:50Bunnie XO?

  That's the confirmation you needed.

• 1:10:52Speaker 01

  It was, so I, I went out and I sang with her and then we, and then she called me.

• 1:10:56Bunnie XO?

  What song was it?

• 1:10:57Speaker 01

  So it was a song called Stop Hating, or, uh, Stop Hating Hate, or something like that. And it's like, um, it, the song is like, stop saying the word faggot. Stop saying like,

• 1:11:11Bunnie XO?

  How do you sing that? I wanna hear this.

• 1:11:12Speaker 01

  I, I, I'm trying to think how it, how it even goes. Um, oh, so it's like, my pussy ain't weak. Can you handle that? So stop, so, what is it? Uh, so stop calling men a pussy like that. I don't need young girls to think that even their sex organs are weak. So stop saying pussy. And while I'm at it, you can stop saying faggot. It really is time. I think we've had it. And so it's like, just like all these things of like stigmas of like, quit saying these things. Never sang this, never heard the song, so I'm holding a piece of,

• 1:11:48Bunnie XO?

  And by the way, you sounded great.

• 1:11:49Speaker 01

  Uh, well, thank you. But I'm like, have this piece of paper and I'm singing this song on stage with her. And it was incredible cause she like, I'm thinking, nobody's gonna know who the fuck I am, right? And so she calls me out on stage and like, the crowd starts screaming and I'm like, You know, it was, it was just incredible. And then, then she called me back out to yodel. Cause I can yodel. And so she's like.

• 1:12:09Bunnie XO?

  Yodel right the fuck now, Matt. Do it now. Yes. We're obsessed with yodeling. We love it, dude.

• 1:12:20Speaker 01

  So we yodeled.

• 1:12:22Bunnie XO?

  Carly Pearce was on the podcast three days ago and she could, she can yodel, but she wouldn't do it for us.

• 1:12:28Speaker 01

  Why?

• 1:12:28Bunnie XO?

  I don't know.

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  Okay, I'll do it for you.

• 1:12:30Bunnie XO?

  Oh, God, okay.

• 1:12:31Speaker 01

  Let's see, what's the song?

• 1:12:33Bunnie XO?

  God, I'm excited.

• 1:12:33Speaker 01

  The song is, um, uh. Well, chime bells are ringing, yodel-ity. Mockingbirds are singing, yodel-ity. Hush little lover, yodel-ity, upon a summer's eve. Yodel-ity, yodel-ity, yodel-ity, yodel-ity, yodel-ity, yodel-ity, yodel-ity, yodel-ity.

• 1:13:02Bunnie XO?

  Oh my God. I love that. I have goosebumps.

• 1:13:07Speaker 01

  I've never done that for anybody.

• 1:13:09Bunnie XO?

  That is so cool. I love that. When did, okay, how did you discover, where the fuck did you learn how to yodel?

• 1:13:16Speaker 01

  Jewel.

• 1:13:17Bunnie XO?

  Wow. So she yodels too?

• 1:13:19Speaker 01

  She yodels. She grew up in Alaska.

• 1:13:22Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:22Speaker 01

  You know, and that's like, yodeling was their family thing. Like they all yodeled.

• 1:13:26Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  And I was so obsessed with her that she could do it. So I had to teach myself how to do it.

• 1:13:30Bunnie XO?

  Oh my God.

• 1:13:31Speaker 01

  And so I told her that I could yodel. And she was like, wait, really? So we're on, I'm on side stage. We had already sang together and she said, somebody in the audience said, yelled, yodel. And she was like, oh, you want me to yodel? And they were like, yeah. And so she was like, Matt, get your ass back out here. And I went back out there and we yodeled together. And I was just like, what the fuck?

• 1:13:52Bunnie XO?

  Oh my, I got goosebumps. That is so cool.

• 1:13:55Speaker 01

  It was crazy. And then afterwards she was like, Matt, you gotta do music. And I was like. I'm too scared. I don't think I'm good enough. Like, I don't think that I can-

• 1:14:02Bunnie XO?

  You're very good.

• 1:14:04Speaker 01

  And so she put me in touch with her producer here in Nashville, and I had like a list of songs that I'd written. And I came to Nashville and I recorded them all. And we just literally got all the masters back, literally two days ago.

• 1:14:19Bunnie XO?

  Oh.

• 1:14:20Speaker 01

  So the record-

• 1:14:21Bunnie XO?

  Start sending me stuff. I want to hear it.

• 1:14:22Speaker 01

  Well, so I never sent you anything because I didn't want you to think like, oh, he's sending me music because my husband-

• 1:14:28Bunnie XO?

  My husband sends me music all day long. Send me music.

• 1:14:31Speaker 01

  Like-

• 1:14:31Bunnie XO?

  I'll tell you if I like it or not.

• 1:14:33Speaker 01

  But you know what I mean? Like, I didn't want you to think, oh, like, he's trying to get into music, or like, he wants to be, you know what I mean?

• 1:14:38Bunnie XO?

  No, I wouldn't think that at all.

• 1:14:39Speaker 01

  So I didn't want to ever do that because I was like, no, I don't want her to think that.

• 1:14:42Bunnie XO?

  My husband sends me his tracks all the time because I'm not a Jelly Roll fan. I never have been. And I will tell my husband straight up, do not put that on your album. This is terrible. And so he loves that because he'll talk shit and be like, you fuck up my algorithm. But he really loves the fact that he'll send me tracks and I'll be like, yes, no, yes, no. And he really listens. He won't put them on the album if I don't like them.

• 1:15:02Speaker 01

  And that's what I want too, is somebody to be like, this is really good or this is not good.

• 1:15:05Bunnie XO?

  I will always be honest.

• 1:15:06Speaker 01

  Because people don't usually do that, you know? And so now Sloan and like everybody at WME, they, obviously there's such a big music, country music, they have a hold on that. And they're like-

• 1:15:15Bunnie XO?

  Shout out Sloan, we love you.

• 1:15:16Speaker 01

  Shout out, we love you Sloan. Um, they're like, Matt, your voice is so unique and it's so good. You have to do this music. But we don't know where your music's gonna fall because it's not like pop country.

• 1:15:27Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:27Speaker 01

  It's more folk. Like, they're like, it's very much Jewel.

• 1:15:31Bunnie XO?

  But do you think that you could do like a Jewel mix with like Tyler Childers? Because Childers- Tyler Childers is kind of folk music in some ways.

• 1:15:41Speaker 01

  And that's kind of what I feel like my music is similar to. So that's kind of like where we are right now is, you know, they're like, oh, Matt, your music is incredible. But it's probably not going to be mainstream enough. It's not going to be on the radio. It's not going to be, you know, this, this, and this. Your voice is incredible. The music is incredible. We just don't know where it's going to land. We don't know where it'll live.

• 1:16:02Bunnie XO?

  Well, lucky for you, you have a cult following that will probably blow their minds.

• 1:16:08Speaker 01

  Well, I hope. But I also don't want to get my hopes up, you know, because like that was-

• 1:16:12Bunnie XO?

  Have faith in yourself.

• 1:16:13Speaker 01

  That was always what I wanted to do. And so to just put the record, just to make the record was just for me.

• 1:16:19Bunnie XO?

  Would you ever mix music in with your comedy shows?

• 1:16:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I have a little bit. Jewel actually tells me she thinks that I should sing my songs.

• 1:16:30Speaker 01

  On stage while I do my comedy, like either before or after, or like some way do it that way. But I'm just like, how do I go from like talking about sucking dick to writing to this beautiful ballad?

• 1:16:40Bunnie XO?

  You know, right?

• 1:16:41Speaker 01

  How do I do that?

• 1:16:42Bunnie XO?

  How do you mix it in? Yeah.

• 1:16:43Speaker 01

  You know, because like

• 1:16:44Bunnie XO?

  Josh Adam Meyer and Josh Wolfe, those are all friends of ours. My husband's like really entrenched in the comedian world and they sing a lot of stuff online, but it's funny stuff.

• 1:16:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. See, my music isn't funny.

• 1:16:56Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:16:56Speaker 01

  And that's what I wanted was like, I wanted to show people a different side of me, like not the funny side. I want

• 1:17:03Bunnie XO?

  You want to separate church from state.

• 1:17:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think parody music is so corny.

• 1:17:07Bunnie XO?

  Right. Yeah. Like Weird Al Yankovic.

• 1:17:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think it's so corny.

• 1:17:11Bunnie XO?

  I do it every, I do it every Christmas. I drop a Christmas song every year and it's

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  But I feel like that's different because it's Christmas.

• 1:17:18Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:18Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? But like now there's a, so it right now on the show that I perform at the very end of this, at the very end of the show, I perform an acoustic ballad of My Neck, My Back.

• 1:17:27Bunnie XO?

  I love that. Have you ever put it on TikTok?

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:17:31Bunnie XO?

  Why not? It will go fucking insanely viral.

• 1:17:35Speaker 01

  So I'm just, you can, here's the thing. You can tell me I'm not funny and I'm like, bitch, I know I am. But you tell me you can't sing and that'll hurt my feelings.

• 1:17:45Bunnie XO?

  Matt, put My Neck, My Back acoustic on TikTok and watch how much it fucking blows up. I'll use it 10 fucking thousand times if I have to until it blows up. It will blow up. I promise you.

• 1:17:54Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 1:17:55Bunnie XO?

  I promise you, please. You gotta have faith in yourself, dude. Look how much you've done already.

• 1:18:00Speaker 01

  I know. I'm just

• 1:18:01Bunnie XO?

  Look how much you've done already.

• 1:18:02Speaker 01

  It's scary.

• 1:18:03Bunnie XO?

  It is very scary putting yourself out there, but dude, you got Jewel co-signing you. You just fucking yodeled for us. Like you've got talent, dude.

• 1:18:10Speaker 01

  That made my stomach hurt.

• 1:18:11Bunnie XO?

  No, it was so good. What do you mean? My nipples got hard. I was turned on. I never thought I would

• 1:18:18Speaker 01

  Matthews made Bunny's nipples hard.

• 1:18:19Bunnie XO?

  I never thought that I would get turned on by a yodel and I was fucking completely turned on. Like it was amazing.

• 1:18:25Speaker 01

  It's just so scary, you know?

• 1:18:27Bunnie XO?

  It is scary.

• 1:18:27Speaker 01

  Cause it's such a serious thing, you know, like it's very intimate and like I just, I wrote a song called Under Trailer Lights. And it's like, it talks about my mom and like living in a trailer and like that's like WME is obsessed with it.

• 1:18:41Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:42Speaker 01

  And I'm just like,

• 1:18:44Bunnie XO?

  Because you feel so vulnerable.

• 1:18:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:46Bunnie XO?

  It's crazy, though, because you wrote a book.

• 1:18:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, but that's different.

• 1:18:49Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:50Speaker 01

  That's so different.

• 1:18:50Bunnie XO?

  So this is like, this is your, like, that one thing that you're gonna-

• 1:18:54Speaker 01

  When we're off camera, I'll let you hear it.

• 1:18:55Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  But I'm like-

• 1:18:56Bunnie XO?

  Well, send it to me, yeah. Send me all your stuff. Ah, so do they want to drop it soon, or is that gonna be like your first single?

• 1:19:04Speaker 01

  So they want me to take label meetings.

• 1:19:06Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 1:19:06Speaker 01

  And I'm like-

• 1:19:07Bunnie XO?

  Why do you have to sign with a label?

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  I don't have to, and that's what I'm saying. But they want to do it, I mean, because my publicist is very, um, I'm the only, I'm the only comedian that my publicist has.

• 1:19:18Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:19:18Speaker 01

  Like, she's worked with several big comedians.

• 1:19:21Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:19:21Speaker 01

  Um, and then she was like, we want to bring on another comedian, but they wouldn't just sign anybody. So, um, she represents massive, massive country stars, you know?

• 1:19:31Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:19:31Speaker 01

  So she was like, I really want to work with you. She, and she doesn't take on anybody, so it was an honor for her to want to work with me. So I signed with her, and then obviously now WME. And so they want to be very strategic about it. And they, I was just gonna throw the shit out there.

• 1:19:45Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:46Speaker 01

  And just be like, here you go.

• 1:19:47Bunnie XO?

  Do the Jesse Murph, man. That's what she does.

• 1:19:49Speaker 01

  I know. God, I love her.

• 1:19:50Bunnie XO?

  I know, she's the sweetest.

• 1:19:51Speaker 01

  I love her.

• 1:19:52Bunnie XO?

  She will literally throw music up, and it will go completely insanely viral. It'll chart, all that stuff, and she'll never release it.

• 1:20:00Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:20:00Bunnie XO?

  Like, but it just, it, just to get your name out there.

• 1:20:03Speaker 01

  What she does that I will never do is, and that's the biggest struggle that I had, was I see all the artists that are blowing up with music, is because they get their phone, and they get the sound, and they fucking lip sync it. And I can't do that, because it is the cringiest shit to me.

• 1:20:18Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:20:19Speaker 01

  And they're like, when you release a single, you gotta be posting every day, every day, every day with that.

• 1:20:23Bunnie XO?

  My husband can't do that either. He hates it.

• 1:20:25Speaker 01

  Do that.

• 1:20:26Bunnie XO?

  He's the same way.

• 1:20:27Speaker 01

  So I'm like, how do I post the music without making these videos?

• 1:20:30Bunnie XO?

  You do other things. He'd, he'll like, you know, post a concert clip, or like, post a vulnerable moment you're having with a fan. Or like, there's so many other ways to market it to where you're not having to sing in your camera.

• 1:20:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, because I'm just like, I'm not 22 years old.

• 1:20:43Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:43Speaker 01

  Like, doing a TikTok with my song. Like, I just can't do that.

• 1:20:46Bunnie XO?

  I get that.

• 1:20:47Speaker 01

  Like, it's so cringy to me.

• 1:20:48Bunnie XO?

  What would be your dream collab if you- So I'm sorry, he's over here just fucking sawing logs. What would be your dream collab that you would be able to work with? I mean, you've

• 1:20:57Speaker 01

  Music or comedy?

• 1:20:58Bunnie XO?

  Jewel with music.

• 1:20:59Speaker 01

  Music.

• 1:21:00Bunnie XO?

  And comedy. Let's do both, music and comedy.

• 1:21:02Speaker 01

  Um, well, I mean, we're already both coming out of retirement. So for photography, I mean, obviously.

• 1:21:09Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, baby. I'm gonna get these titties out. I can't wait.

• 1:21:13Speaker 01

  I don't think we're ready for what that could be. Um, music, I feel like, um, I've already performed with Jewel, but like doing, we had, we had talked about doing a duet together. But she's, she's been doing this for so long that she's just like, I don't want to work anymore, you know?

• 1:21:32Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:33Speaker 01

  So she's kind of out. Um,

• 1:21:37Speaker 01

  music, I really love, right now I'm really loving Jessie. I think she's so good.

• 1:21:42Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, she's

• 1:21:43Speaker 01

  Um, I love her new album. I really love that. Um, I really love.

• 1:21:52Bunnie XO?

  Bro.

• 1:21:52Speaker 01

  He is going at it. I wonder if you can hear him in the microphone?

• 1:21:55Bunnie XO?

  Uh, no, we, we usually edit it.

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  Um, so I'm trying to think who I'm just like really, really obsessed with right now. Um.

• 1:22:06Bunnie XO?

  Male or female?

• 1:22:07Speaker 01

  Male or female?

• 1:22:08Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:22:09Speaker 01

  I really love, I really love Ella right now.

• 1:22:12Bunnie XO?

  Dude, Ella is so saucy. I love her.

• 1:22:16Speaker 01

  She and I are good friends. Um, well, we've talked about that, you know, that we're friends. We're from, we're both from Alabama.

• 1:22:21Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  Um, I won't go there, but, um, so yes, Ella, I think Ella's great. I don't know that I, she's my dream collab by any means, but, um, man, that's hard.

• 1:22:33Bunnie XO?

  So we got Jessie and Ella.

• 1:22:34Speaker 01

  We got, we got, we're the total opposite ends of the spectrum.

• 1:22:39Bunnie XO?

  Well, Jessie's going a more sexy way and then Ella's going more country darling.

• 1:22:44Speaker 01

  God, I love Elvis.

• 1:22:45Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. I mean, I do too. Um, I just feel like this era for Jessie is, you know, she's so young.

• 1:22:52Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:22:52Bunnie XO?

  So we're gonna see this era and 10 other more as she goes through her thing. So nobody get married to the idea that she's gonna be prancing around like Priscilla Presley next year.

• 1:23:02Speaker 01

  No, it's not happening.

• 1:23:03Bunnie XO?

  She's gonna be a completely different human.

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  No, no, no, yeah.

• 1:23:04Bunnie XO?

  As she ages, she's, she's gonna evolve into different

• 1:23:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:23:07Bunnie XO?

  eras of her life.

• 1:23:08Speaker 01

  I also am really like, I really love 90's grunge.

• 1:23:11Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:11Speaker 01

  Like, um.

• 1:23:15Bunnie XO?

  Like Pearl Jam, Nirvana.

• 1:23:16Speaker 01

  Biscuit kick lately.

• 1:23:18Bunnie XO?

  Oh, we love Fred. You know Fred's in Nashville.

• 1:23:20Speaker 01

  No, I didn't.

• 1:23:20Bunnie XO?

  Oh, yeah. I talked to Fred all the time.

• 1:23:22Speaker 01

  I posted a barrel, you know, a barrel race. And I posted a barrel racing clip the other day with the.

• 1:23:27Bunnie XO?

  I saw it.

• 1:23:29Bunnie XO?

  I was like, this is hot.

• 1:23:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm like, I love that. It just really reminded me of like, it's very nostalgic.

• 1:23:35Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, Fred's out here in Nashville. He lives here.

• 1:23:39Speaker 01

  Uh, Bush. I love Bush.

• 1:23:41Bunnie XO?

  Yes, Gavin, Gavin Rosdale.

• 1:23:43Speaker 01

  Not Bush, Bush, but the band Bush.

• 1:23:45Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, those are all great. Those are all great.

• 1:23:48Speaker 01

  Well, Kurt Cobain's dead, but you know, it's fine.

• 1:23:50Bunnie XO?

  There's always Courtney Love. Courtney Love was amazing. I loved her.

• 1:23:53Speaker 01

  Her daughter, their daughter followed me on Instagram.

• 1:23:57Bunnie XO?

  Frances, yeah.

• 1:23:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:58Bunnie XO?

  She, crazy. She married Tony Hawk's fucking son. Like what two fucking, just like empires.

• 1:24:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:04Bunnie XO?

  Kurt Cobain and Tony Hawk, fucking their worlds coming together and they had a baby together, like wild. So I'm gonna ask you a couple of questions to close out. Um, you've built this empire from scratch. What's something that you wish more people knew about the hard work behind the scenes?

• 1:24:20Speaker 01

  How much work it is.

• 1:24:21Bunnie XO?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:24:22Speaker 01

  You know, people think that, oh, you just blew up on the internet. You just got successful overnight from videos. You don't realize just how much work we put into this.

• 1:24:29Bunnie XO?

  And how hard it is to stay, to maintain.

• 1:24:32Speaker 01

  To maintain.

• 1:24:32Bunnie XO?

  You know how many people go up and then straight back down? To be able to go up and keep coasting and keep growing is very hard.

• 1:24:40Speaker 01

  That is the hard, number one, how much money I've spent, you know, on my team, on publicists, on managers, on agents. Like the, the amount of just like blood, sweat and tears that go into it and then to stay there.

• 1:24:56Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. Was there ever a time that you almost gave up, like creating content?

• 1:25:01Speaker 01

  Um, no, never, never almost gave up because I, what, what the fuck else am I gonna do?

• 1:25:06Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:25:07Speaker 01

  Like.

• 1:25:08Bunnie XO?

  Right? No, I feel the same way. I'm like, my husband's like, you feel like you can't ever take time off? I'm like, I can't.

• 1:25:13Speaker 01

  That's how I feel. I can't, I can't ever take off.

• 1:25:16Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, no, for sure.

• 1:25:18Speaker 01

  They did ask me the other day, they were like, would you ever do like a destination show? And I was like, what do you mean?

• 1:25:23Bunnie XO?

  Like Love Island?

• 1:25:25Speaker 01

  They were, no, like, like going to a, they were like, you and like several of your friends that are in the industry. And they were like, y'all like, you and Bunny could go and do a podcast in Mexico and we could bring Jewel and y'all do a song together. And we could bring Kelly Osbourne and y'all, and like, like sell all the, like a cruise almost.

• 1:25:41Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:25:42Speaker 01

  You know, and I was like, W M E asked, W M E asked me that and I was like, oh, well, I've never thought of it, but it sounds fun.

• 1:25:48Bunnie XO?

  I mean, I'm down.

• 1:25:49Speaker 01

  I'm like.

• 1:25:50Bunnie XO?

  I'm down.

• 1:25:50Speaker 01

  Go to Mexico and like get a vacation with your friends and then get to work? Sure.

• 1:25:55Bunnie XO?

  Get to hang out with fucking Kelly Osbourne? I'm totally down. I love Kelly so much. She's so sweet. Is there anything that fame has given you that you never expected?

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  Uh, it has given me, number one, it has given me clarity on who I am as a person. You know, because everybody thinks that fame changes you.

• 1:26:16Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:26:16Speaker 01

  And for a lot of people it does.

• 1:26:18Bunnie XO?

  Money doesn't, uh, what is it? Money does, money reveals character.

• 1:26:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:26:22Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 1:26:23Speaker 01

  And, uh, I think that is one of the, one of the things that I have always, like, being humble is very, very strong driving force for me.

• 1:26:34Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:34Speaker 01

  I don't ever want to change because people know who I am or because I have money.

• 1:26:38Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:39Speaker 01

  Or anything like that. Like, I just want to, I always want to stay who I am. And that's why a lot of people are like, would you ever, are you ever going to move to Nashville? Are you ever going to move to New York or LA? And I'm like, no, I live in bumfuck Alabama still.

• 1:26:50Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:50Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:26:51Bunnie XO?

  Would you, you'd never leave Alabama?

• 1:26:53Speaker 01

  Oh, I mean, if, if I had, like, if there was the right opportunity, maybe. Um, but I'm like, I'm two hours from, from Nashville.

• 1:27:01Bunnie XO?

  Right, from everything.

• 1:27:02Speaker 01

  You know, like, so I'm two hours driving here to you, or I can get on a flight, two hours to New York. You know what I mean? Like, if I have to go do a role or in a movie or a TV show, or if I got something like that and I had to go work for a little while, that's fine, but I'm always going to go back to my country.

• 1:27:19Bunnie XO?

  To your roots.

• 1:27:19Speaker 01

  To my house. You know, and I think, I think that is a part of what has kept me who I am.

• 1:27:24Bunnie XO?

  I love that so much. And last thing, if your animals could talk for 30 seconds, what dirt would they spill on you?

• 1:27:33Speaker 01

  That I am.

• 1:27:34Bunnie XO?

  If there was any scandal that any of your animals could leak, what would it be?

• 1:27:38Speaker 01

  Well, damn bitch, if I tell you, then why not?

• 1:27:40Bunnie XO?

  We wanna know, inquiring minds wanna know. We need the headline, Matt, give it to us.

• 1:27:46Speaker 01

  Any scandal? Well, nobody ever comes to my house, so there's no like. I really be in that robe with no underwear on. People think that's a joke. That's the real deal.

• 1:28:00Speaker 01

  I really be cussing my husband out.

• 1:28:05Bunnie XO?

  Where is Hevy? Is he at home?

• 1:28:06Speaker 01

  He's at home, yeah. I'm honestly very boring.

• 1:28:09Bunnie XO?

  I am too, I get it.

• 1:28:11Speaker 01

  There's, I don't have, I don't like, you know, the whole, what is the biggest lie? I don't think there is one, cause like, I'm just, I figured it out. What is my biggest lie?

• 1:28:19Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:20Speaker 01

  When I was looking at gay porn, when I was like a young kid and my dad saw it, and I told him I wasn't gay.

• 1:28:26Bunnie XO?

  Aww.

• 1:28:28Speaker 01

  And he's like.

• 1:28:29Bunnie XO?

  But you were scared. You were scared.

• 1:28:31Speaker 01

  But I was shy looking at big dick on my dad's computer.

• 1:28:34Bunnie XO?

  He's like, how am I getting these pop-ups? Cause back then you would get the pop-ups.

• 1:28:39Speaker 01

  And he was like, well, son, are you gay? And I was like, no.

• 1:28:43Bunnie XO?

  He's just getting me, he's fucking having his morning coffee and the pop-ups are just dicks slapping him in the face. I love it. Matt, tell people where they can buy tickets, tell people where you're gonna be, tell them you're, tell them whatever you wanna tell them, where they can find you on the internet, see you all.

• 1:28:56Speaker 01

  Uh, mattmathews.com for all the tickets, uh, matt underscore Matthews for all of the socia's. One T in the last name.

• 1:29:05Bunnie XO?

  Yes. Is it one T?

• 1:29:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:07Bunnie XO?

  I always think it's two.

• 1:29:09Speaker 01

  It's very common for, for two Ts, but only one.

• 1:29:12Bunnie XO?

  Alright, well, I'm glad you made that clarification. Thank you so much for coming on.

• 1:29:16Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:29:17Bunnie XO?

  I can't wait to have you back on. Come back anytime, my couch is always open for you.

• 1:29:20Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:29:21Bunnie XO?

  And you're gonna have to teach me how to fucking yodel.

• 1:29:22Speaker 01

  Okay, let's do it.

• 1:29:23Bunnie XO?

  I wanna learn how to, while we're doing boudoir shoot.

• 1:29:25Speaker 01

  Okay. We'll make it, you wanna make a TikTok and I'll teach you how to yodel? We'll do a TikTok.

• 1:29:29Bunnie XO?

  Oh my god, I'm gonna be like.

• 1:29:35Bunnie XO?

  Thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of Upset Blonde. I'll see you guys next week. Bye.