Matteo Lane: Gayle King, Late-Night TV, and ‘The Al Dente Special’
The Last Laugh
The Daily Beast
4.6 • 661 Ratings
🗓️ 25 June 2025
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For the first several years of his career, stand-up comedian Matteo Lane would open his sets by telling the audience, “Obviously, I’m gay.” At a certain point, he got tired of coming out to a room of strangers every night and instead begins his new Hulu hour ‘The Al Dente Special’ by making fun of the way white women talk—a bit that delighted Gayle King and led to one of the more awkwardly hilarious morning TV moments in recent history. In this episode, Lane explains why he decided to give the ‘CBS Mornings’ host a pass for repeating the “f-slur” back to him and reveals how King’s fellow astronaut Katy Perry ended up being part of his special as well. And as Pride Month comes to a close, he discusses why he’s sick of people expecting gay comedians to relive their trauma, shares why he avoids talking politics on stage, and calls out TV bookers for keeping him off of late-night TV because they deemed his act “too gay.”
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is The Last Laugh. I'm Matt Wilstein from The Daily Beast, and today we are |
| 0:10.3 | wrapping up the month of June by talking with the extremely funny and talented Mateo Lane. |
| 0:17.1 | As we discuss in today's interview, there was a time when Mateo would open every stand-up |
| 0:22.3 | set he did by telling the audience that he is, quote, obviously gay. |
| 0:27.5 | It's not something he feels the need to do anymore and really does not want being an openly |
| 0:31.8 | gay man to define him as a comedian. |
| 0:35.1 | But it is still a huge part of his latest hour, the Aldente special, which is |
| 0:39.5 | streaming now on Hulu. Mateo and I dig into this tricky balance during our conversation, |
| 0:45.1 | which also touches on why Joan Rivers remains his greatest inspiration, and why he decided to |
| 0:50.8 | instantly forgive CBS Morning's host, Gailail King for letting the F slur slip during |
| 0:56.7 | his appearance on that show earlier this year. Before we get into it, let's listen to a clip from the |
| 1:02.5 | Aldente special about one of Mateo Lane's many travel frustrations. I was in Rome a couple |
| 1:09.7 | months ago and uh, chow. |
| 1:12.9 | And I saw these three white girls walking. |
| 1:16.5 | They're probably like 19, 20. |
| 1:18.3 | I mean, you're young, probably the first time in Rome. |
| 1:20.1 | They feel like adults. |
| 1:21.1 | And they're all eating gelato and they're walking. |
| 1:23.4 | And the girl on the right goes, this gelato is better than the gelata we had yesterday. And the girl in the middle goes, |
| 1:29.4 | another win for TikTok. |
| 1:37.8 | I hope she's dead. |
| 1:44.0 | This would be another win for TikTok. |
... |
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