Rose Matafeo

Rose Matafeo (born 25 February 1992) is a New Zealand comedian, actress and TV presenter. Born Rose Catherine Lettitia Matafeo in Auckland, she is the daughter of John Matafeo, a Samoan first-generation immigrant who worked at the Rastafarian Church, and Diane Vuletich, a Pakeha teacher of Scottish and Croatian heritage. Her parents are Rastafarians who met through the Twelve Tribes of Israel denomination. She grew up in Ponsonby, Auckland, attended Auckland Girls' Grammar School where she was head girl, and began doing stand-up comedy at the age of 15 through the "Class Comedians" programme.

Matafeo won the "Nailed It on the Night" award at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival in 2007 and best newcomer at the same festival in 2010. She won the Billy T Award for The Rose Matafeo Variety Hour in 2013. On 25 August 2018, she won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for her show Horndog, collecting a £10,000 prize; she was the first person of colour and the first New Zealander to win the prestigious award for a solo show. She was a writer and performer on the New Zealand sketch show Funny Girls, which she co-created and starred in for three seasons from 2015 to 2018.

She was a TV presenter and host of U Live on the TVNZ U channel from 2011 to 2013, then a writer for Jono and Ben at Ten. She appeared in 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and was a contestant on the ninth series of Taskmaster. She made her US television debut on Conan O'Brien's talk show in May 2019, and her comedy special Horndog was released on HBO Max on 20 August 2020. She was cast as the lead in the 2020 comedy film Baby Done and co-created the rom-com Starstruck, which began in April 2021. She also directed five episodes of the New Zealand sitcom Golden Boy in 2019 and hosts the podcast Boners of the Heart with Alice Snedden.