Matt Okine: 'People who hear me on the radio assume I'm white'

Matt Okine’s new television show The Other Guy is based on his real-life, and in addition to the highly publicised relationship issues he’s dealt with, the program also looks at the racism he’s faced while being in the public eye.

A scene from the new Stan comedy shows Matt cringing in the back of an Uber, when the driver is stunned that he’s actually hearing the comedian’s voice on radio, as he ‘always thought you were white’.

Speaking to Be, 32-year-old Matt, who hosted Triple J’s breakfast radio program from 2014 to 2016, says this sort of scenario has “absolutely” happened to him several times in real life.

“I remember I’d been doing the radio for two years and someone on my Facebook was like, ‘Wait, what?’,” Matt explains.

“Because someone had tagged them underneath my page or whatever and they were still figuring it only just then.”

“It’s a lot different now I guess that there is Facebook and Insta so people picked up on it earlier,” he continues, but adds there’s still always that proportion of the audience who are not expecting him to be brown.

“Definitely for the first few weeks I was on the radio, I’d be out at music festivals and [Triple J co-host] Alex Dyson would be standing in front of me and they’d be like ‘Where’s Matt?’,” he recounts.

The Other Guy is no doubt a project very close to Matt's heart, as it's based on his own experience of being cheated on by a long-term girlfriend, with his best friend.

And while some may perceive the show could be "some shocking expose", the former Triple J breakfast host insists, "it’s just not like that".

"It’s not like a Matt Okine documentary or anything like that. There are elements in this that run parallel to events that happened in my life," he tells Be.

"I think it’s a universal story. I think it’s something either people are terrified of having or it’s like something like this has happened to them. I just wanted to tell an honest story."

Also starring the likes of Valene Kane, Christiaan Van Vuuren and Michael Hing, The Other Guy premieres on Stan on Thursday August 17.

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