Princess Me, down to a T
Rose Matafeo is a Kiwi comedian who’s lived between New Zealand and the UK for the past few years, having cut her comedic teeth as a writer and performer on Three’s Funny Girls. Matafeo, 25, is pictured aged 4 at her aunty’s house.
“That photo is from a family photo shoot that my mother made me and my two older brothers do at my aunty’s house in Massey. We couldn’t afford a legit family photo shoot so mum tried to orchestrate a professional-looking photo shoot by herself. That was a nice candid photo of me, looking very vacant. I think my mum likes it a lot. The T-shirt I’m wearing is one of my iconic slogan T-shirts I wore a lot when I was younger that my mum would buy me. It’s supposed to say, “Don’t Bug Me.” But they’ve put a bumble bee as the bug. So it would often get mistaken as, “Don’t Bee Me.” I wish I still had it.
I’m probably looking at my cousin’s skateboard ramp. They had a big long driveway and a quarter pipe at the bottom. I was the only girl out of all of my cousins on my mum’s side and I was quite jealous of the skateboarding. I was the princess of the family.
I’m based in the UK at the moment. I’m back and forth so much - six months here or Australia or Edinburgh for the past couple of years.
It’s been pretty crazy living all over the place, but it’s been awesome being able to travel and do comedy for a living. I feel a lot of stress buying “nesting” things. I own this really nice coffee pot... It doesn’t seem worth it. It’s a really huge problem. There’s nothing worse.
With my last show, there were a lot of stories from me growing up. When I started, I had no life experiences to base any jokes on, but now I finally do, and I actually have the perspective to define what’s actually funny from my upbringing. So it does inform a lot of my stuff. I think everyone’s families or upbringings are crazier than they actually think, until they mention something they did or experienced when they were kids, and the reaction’s like, “No, that’s pretty weird.” When my grandma’s bird Caesar was dying, the whole family had to drive out and farewell him. He was covered in a little robe. We all had to go and pet him a little bit and say goodbye.