The results? You can call it comically chaotic electricity. Deadline named Mathews one of 2025 Comedians to Watch and he has more than lived up to those expectations, consistently delivering top performances to sold-out audiences from coast to coast.
“I always wanted to be an artist, so I started sharing my life on the Internet,” Mathews recalls. “And people loved it.”
His stand-up act is an authentically daring mix of personal stories and his signature, casual back-and-forth with the audience – a combination that has endeared him to millions of people, both in sold-out theaters and in both his YouTube And TikTok channels. This weekend Mathews is bringing his Boujee on a budget is touring to Las Vegas for the first time and recently announced 22 more shows for 2026.
“What you see on the Internet is not scripted and not part of the show,” he says. “It’s just public work. And that’s the part that isn’t written.”
Although Mathews shows off his improvisation skills on stage, the real work awaits him at home in Birmingham. Unlike the wild unpredictability of stand-up, farm life is a carefully choreographed routine. With 104 hectares to manage and a slew of chickens, pigs, dogs, cats and a camera-hungry goat who relies on him for breakfast at 7am, Mathews embraces the daily grind.
Then there’s Lolo and Hush Money, his two world-class racehorses, who require championship-level care, focus and attention, and that’s what Mathews, a championship-caliber rider himself, brings to their stables every day.
Despite his busy schedule, Mathews still finds time for new pursuits: whether it’s diving into music, landing acting gigs or constant updates on social media. It’s all propelled his rise from internet sensation to national comedy headliner. Yet, remarkably, he still manages to go to bed at a decent time, ready to do it all again the next day.
What now holds this grueling schedule together, for both body and mind, is Mathews’ limitless dedication to training.
During this time, the comedian has gradually developed a greater appreciation for his physique and the transformation it has undergone since he started taking training more seriously. Mathews admits that being on stage for ninety minutes every night was much easier than looking in the mirror for ninety seconds. At one point he even relied on shapewear to create a more aesthetic appearance. But as his biceps continue to expand, so does the star’s confidence.
“I grew up not really loving my body and not feeling good about myself,” he admits. “I’ve always been concerned with losing weight or getting fit. But my fitness goals have become a big part of learning to love my body. Being strong, healthy, and able to compete have become very important.”
Now with a home gym tailored to his relentless schedule, Mathews makes working out – whether it’s for stage presence, rural strength or that competitive edge – a non-negotiable daily ritual. “You obviously don’t want to look bad on stage, especially when you’re in front of a lot of people and your work is in the public eye. So I definitely try to keep it together.”
Staying farm fit
At home on his sprawling farm, Mathews’ daily regimen is both physically demanding and psychologically rewarding. He has documented this lifestyle for millions of fans, sharing candid moments from his 104-acre Alabama retreat on YouTube and TikTok. In one recent episodehe turned to an animal communicator to help uncover his animals’ “thoughts” about him, especially those of his unpredictable donkey, Wookie. “Wookie is obsessed with me,” he says dryly. The episode offers a glimpse into what fueled Mathews’ meteoric rise in the entertainment world.
“I’m more of a comedic storyteller,” Mathews explains. “I tell my stories, my experiences, but it’s the way you perform and share that makes it funny.” The farm is his welcome escape from the relentless touring schedule that takes him away at least three nights a week. But despite a full agenda, his ‘labor of love’ of morning chores is never skipped. “My day starts before seven o’clock. First I take care of our dogs and cats. Horses, donkeys, chickens and pigs come next. Only after they have been put in the square do I have coffee and breakfast. Then I get to work on the day’s work. In the evening I do it all again.”
Moving from the city to his farm just outside Birmingham has had a profound impact on his diet. He and his husband, Robert Kilgore, buy local meat and produce wherever possible. “We try to buy all our beef from a local farmer: better feed, cleaner living conditions. Meat from the supermarket often comes from poorly fed animals.” When he’s traveling, which is almost every weekend, Mathews fights the urge to binge on pizza and sweets. “I track my macros. I keep it at about 150 grams of protein, 200 grams of carbs, and 65 grams of fat. It’s easy to eat junk on the go after late nights.”
Although his “little friends” are off-limits for consumption (“They’re my babies,” he says), having an unlimited supply of eggs is fair game, but far from free, he points out. “We don’t buy eggs in the supermarket,” he says. “But you have to feed the chickens, and that costs a lot – low grain, high protein, non-GMO – so they can produce good eggs.”
Start of barrel racing
Before Matt Mathews turned his hand to comedy, he became deeply involved in the world of barrel racing: a fast-paced rodeo sport where the goal is to complete a cloverleaf pattern around three barrels in the fastest time possible.
His introduction to racing turned into an obsession by the end of high school. “I got on a horse at a local boarding house and the owner’s daughter started racing, so we rode together a lot in the summer. I started playing with it with her and just kind of fell in love with it,” he recalls.
Mathews soon improved his skills and qualified for three world championships. Although life on the road now dominates his work schedule, he insists on maintaining his competitive edge and trains several times a week with both Lolo and Hush Money.
“Obviously I don’t make a living doing that, but it’s the way I refill my cup,” he says. “It’s what I do that gives me joy outside of work. I can enjoy it and have fun.”
Competitive riding, Mathews says, depends on grip strength and a strong core and back. To maintain strength and conditioning levels, Mathews says weight room times become almost as important as saddle time. “You definitely have to stay on your game. It’s very intense. A good run comes down to hundreds to thousands of seconds,” he notes.
Preparing his body for that level of pressure is a daily mission. “A strong core is the most important thing. And a strong back. You have to be very strong in your core to be able to keep your balance and stay with a horse.”
Home gym rules
While barrel racing requires strength, endurance and a lot of nerves, training extends to every aspect of Mathews’ life and career. With his travel schedule, time at home becomes more valuable, and he makes the most of it. To reduce gym visits, Mathews transformed a corner of his home into a personal fitness center. It comes complete with a treadmill, Smith machine, and enough dumbbells for any routine.
He trains three to four times a week, dividing his sessions between the upper and lower body. “Two days up, two down, and a sauna after each session,” he says.
Mathews usually starts his workouts with cardio. He incorporates incline walks or jogging to build endurance for both the saddle and the stage. On upper body days, he sticks to the staples in the weight room. Exercises such as bench and shoulder presses, lateral raises and bodyweight classics such as push-ups dominate these workouts. Leg days include goblet squats, split squats and sumo squats – essential for strength and the flexibility needed to endure a horse’s unpredictable movements. Back sessions focus on rows and pull-downs, with hammer curls to keep his grip strong. Every training session ends in the sauna: “The sauna is like the greatest gift from God. That helps me a lot.”
One movement you won’t find in his program anymore is the deadlift. Years of CrossFit led to a lumbar injury that now means he can no longer lift heavy weights without pain. “I actually have a bulging disc in one of my lumbar vertebrae,” he says. “Nothing really helped except resting and eventually quitting CrossFit. I don’t do a lot of deadlifts. It confused me so much that I try to avoid them.”
Travel often disrupts Matt’s training schedule. “I don’t train when I’m on the road, because that’s just super difficult.” It’s one reason why maintaining a solid diet remains essential. Eating clean and counting macros helps him maintain discipline across time zones.
Standing spotlight
For years, Matt Mathews found a creative outlet elsewhere. He studied nursing and even got into boudoir photography before his farm video went viral and took his career to a new level. “I posted a video and it got huge: 17 million views. That was the wild start.” Suddenly, millions of people were tuning into his TikTok channel and other social media.
These days, staying fit has boosted his stage presence. It has also given a former overweight youngster a sense of next-level confidence. It’s something the comic admits to missing for parts of his life. “I’ve always had a kind of body dysmorphia and thought I looked very different from what I actually looked like,” he admits. “I’ve always been a bit of a fat kid, and so I’ve always been on some sort of weight loss or fitness journey.”
He’s even gone so far as to wear Spanx on his first tour to hold his abs, and even during an appearance on the Kelly Clarkson show. Since then, Mathews has slowly but consistently evolved, embracing the increasingly muscular appearance he’s worked hard to achieve. He advises others struggling with similar self-doubts to embrace every small improvement every day. “I started training to do better for myself,” he says. “It’s progress, not perfection. We will never have the body we love, and we will never be 100% happy, even if we have a six-pack and 1% body fat.
With his schedule busier than ever and big plans on the horizon (filming his first-ever movie, working on a debut music album and preparing to shoot his second comedy special in December), Matt Mathews is just getting started, taking everyone and everything – fans and furry friends alike – along for the ride.
However, the Spanx are retired.
“I want to look better, and I want to feel better, and I want to do better for myself. And I really hated wearing Spanx that whole first tour, so I thought, I’m not doing this again,” he says.
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