Rhys Mathewson is a New Zealand comedian, writer, and actor. He won the Billy T Award in 2010 and the Fred Award in 2016.
Early life Mathewson was born in Palmerston North, New Zealand. He has a brother. He studied tap dance from the age of 5 until 15 and attended Westlake Boys High School. While a teenager, he participated in the New Zealand International Comedy Festival's Class Comedians program and decided to pursue comedy as a career.
After winning the Billy T Award in 2010, Mathewson dropped out of the University of Auckland (but continued to write a column, "Rhys's Pieces", for the student magazine Craccum).
Career Mathewson was awarded Best Newcomer at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival for his first solo show in 2009, The Best $18 You'll Ever Spend. He performed at Edinburgh Fringe in 2009 and 2013.
Mathewson won the Billy T Award in 2010 for his show Rhyspect becoming the award's youngest-ever winner at 19 and the Fred Award in 2016 for Nouveau Rhys.
Mathewson has acted on the programmes Wanna-Ben, Hounds, The Fucket List, and New Zealand Spy, and appeared as himself on 7Days, AotearoHa, Have You Been Paying Attention?, Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee, Best Bits, Campbell Live, Seven Sharp, Close Up, and The Jono Project. He competed on series9 of Dancing with the Stars in 2022, partnered with Phoebe Robb; they were forced to leave the competition early due to a COVID-19 infection.
He was also a fill-in host on and wrote for The Project, and is a writer on Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee. In 2026, Mathewson appeared on series7 of Taskmaster New Zealand.
he is represented by Gail Cowan Management.
Stand-up shows The Best $18 You'll Ever Spend (2009) Rhyspect (2010) Rhys Mathewson Is Fun (2011) Rhys Mathewson Versus The World (2012) Hombre Lobo (2014) Nouveau Rhys (2016) Rhys Classic (2017) The Future Quiz (2017) The Clumsy Tango (2018) Heartless Joke Machine (2021) The Mathewson & Matthewson Comedy Night (2022; with Eli Matthewson) Heating Up (2023) 10th Rodeo (2024) Surblibor (2024) Time Trial (2025) Big Mistake (2026)
Personal life Mathewson lived in the United Kingdom in 2014. He is vegetarian.
After years of dating, Mathewson married Chelsea McEwan-Millar actor, writer, and managing director of skincare company Go Native New Zealand in 2022 outside of Tauranga. They live in the Grey LynnPosonby area of Auckland with their dog, Gus.
References