As funny as people know Rip Micheals to be, it could be an underestimation. When speaking after a show in Chicago, Rip Micheals opened by telling a hilarious story about cutting his leg running from a woman after snatching off her wig during a live Wild ‘N Out show.
How does he feel about the moment? “It’s great. It was funny.”
Rip Micheals can currently be seen on Wild ‘N Out, his own show, Urban Eats & Treats, where he explores food with his friends and more. Speaking with The Source, Micheals shares how important it is to continue to create, picking HARTBEAT as a partner, and more.
The SOURCE: Urban Eats & Treats. What made you decide to work on this project?
Rip Micheals: As a person that owns a restaurant and has owned it for a while, I saw during the pandemic that all these different restaurants were struggling, just like my own. I wanted to give an opportunity to make money and show that we have so much great stuff in our neighborhoods. So I called on my friends and I was like, “wouldn’t it be dope if we just go around and you take me to your favorite urban spots.” I literally called my friends, Shaq[uill O’Neal], Nick [Cannon], everybody. And they took me to some of the greatest restaurants that you would ever imagine and it became this great show. I shot about four or five of the episodes myself. Then I showed it to Kevin Hart and he picked it up right away and we shot all 12. We are currently planning two seasons.
What let you know Kevin and HARTBEAT were the best partners for this series?
Kevin’s passion. I saw Kevin and he loved it. He was like, “yo, I eat at this restaurant.” Everybody has their favorite spot in their city. Like Cardi [B], she loves to go to this place in the Bronx and get seafood every time she here. She goes to City Island and she told me about that spot. And then she told me about another one on 25th Street. People need to hear about these spots because people will hit a certain level and still go. Shaq loves Slutty Vegan and you would think Shaq, with all the restaurants he owns, would take me to like a Papa John’s or a Wingstop or something. I would never expect Shaq to eat vegan food the food was amazing, and she’s such a great owner. She has like six locations now and expanding into New York.
You speak about sustaining through the pandemic, what did you have to do to survive?
My daughter and I would deliver the food ourselves. She would just go with me and we would just let people know that know we still had food and we would bring their favorite dishes to them. And then, I eventually started doing the GrubHub and Door Dash accounts. But at the time, that’s what we were doing.
You brought your personal relationships to this show. How does it feel to share that bond in a television forum like this?
I think it was dope because we actually went into the kitchens and, in some of the episodes, cooked the food ourselves. With Bill Bellamy, he actually had to make some of the food that he never made before and actually got to see how it was done. So it was really detailed. The funniest thing about it, for some reason, every celebrity, no matter how rich they were, left me with the bill at the end. I thought was weird, like Shaq left me with a hundred-dollar bill, and then Nick left me with a bill too. But for Nick, I understand that because he had so much child support to give out. So I understood why he couldn’t pay the bill at the time. But that was just amazing that rich people do not like to pay for their own food. Did I go too far? [laughs]
Too far? Not at all. That was actually perfect that you mentioned that because you did your Did I Go Too Far? tour. For you, how do you continue to source your comedic content?
It literally comes from my life and then I say some things and have to gauge the audience. So it’s kinda like, I let the audience guide me to be like, okay, Rip, reel it back a little bit. But it’s really like, I expose my life and my real opinions of things. I feel like in today’s climate, cause my name is actually not Rip Micheals. It’s actually Rip Mic Heals. But everybody pronounced it Rip Micheals for some reason. So I just got tired of correcting people. It started because when I was a kid, my mom was crying at my grandmother’s funeral, so bad. And I started doing impressions in front of everybody of grandmother and like a lot of different things. I realized that they stopped crying and started laughing. So it’s Rip Mic Heals cause I tried to shed light on things and to take people’s burdens away. If I could take you out and bring you into my world for five minutes and stop whatever you’re thinking about and shed some joy into you, I’d done my job.
How often has a crowd told you you’re going too far on this run?
I will say that not too many people have told me I’m going too far. I think I did a show in Naples, and I think they were about to tell me cause I was talking about Trump. I’m in Naples, that’s where Judge Judy is from. It’s like a really old, old money-type town. Now I think they’re probably like four black people in the whole part of the town. I see all the people come out, and I was talking about Trump and they were kind of like, okay, you did go too far. I was doing the Trump impression and it’s talking about how Trump was a funny president and it was just like, yeah. I got a standing ovation, so it was cool. And that was the first time I did Trump impressions of jokes. Cause I always adapt to my environment.
You got chased for snatching a wig at the Wild ‘N Out show in Chicago. How has this run of the Wild ‘N Out tour been for you?
It’s been different cuz it’s outside. So the whole tour started in Queens. I’m writing for Nick and he was like, I always wanted to sell out arenas. We took the tour and put it in this little small place called NYC arena that held like 1500 seats and I remember one of the executives thought this could be a tour. But Nick said it didn’t matter because it wasn’t in an arena. So I immediately, the next day, went and booked over 13 different arenas around the country. I sold my truck, maxed out my credit cards and I started promoting it. I put an artist first and then how I choreographed it to be this huge thing that was a little bit different from the television show. We did stand up and we had two artists and it cultivated into this huge thing. It’s actually funny cause I actually broke my leg then. So the entire time I was promoting it, my leg was broken and we sold out every single show. In fact, I still hold the record in DC for selling out two shows. And one night, I did 13,000 in Show Place Arena. And then I went over to Capital One Arena and did 17,600. The same night, we literally took a police escort from one to the other one started at seven, and the other one started at nine. It’s just been great ever since then. Now we’re on a 30-city tour and doing cool parties and a whole bunch of other stuff. And now the Off The Rip tour is gonna be even bigger. We’re going out to 14 cities in the fall.
