Background and career
Matthew James Roloff (born October 7, 1961) is an American television personality, author, farmer, business entrepreneur, and motivational speaker best known for participating with his family on the TLC reality television program Little People, Big World. The show featured the Roloffs' daily life. Roloff has dwarfism, as does his ex-wife Amy and one of their four children, Zachary.
Roloff was born with diastrophic dysplasia, a degenerative dwarfism that caused him to have fifteen operations as a child. He was born to Ron and Peggy Roloff, who are often featured on Little People, Big World. They are of average height as is his older sister, Ruth. His younger brother Sam, an artist and founder of Back-Story Underpainting, has diastrophic dysplasia and uses crutches to walk as well. His middle brother Joshua was born with a severe heart malformation; he died in 1999 at age 34.
The Roloff family includes Matt, Amy, also a little person with achondroplasia, and four children: fraternal twins Jeremy and Zachary (born 1990), Molly (born 1993), and Jacob (born 1997). Zach, like his mother, has achondroplasia, while the other three children are average height. Matt and Amy met at a Little People of America convention in 1987. The couple were engaged quickly and were married on September 12, 1987. In March 2014, the couple announced that they had separated. On June 5, 2015, the couple announced they would be divorcing. Their divorce was finalized in 2016. Amy married Chris Marek in August 2021 on Roloff Farm. Matt was engaged to his long-time girlfriend, Caryn Chandler, who was formerly the farm manager, in 2024. On July 22, 2025, Roloff announced the end of his engagement to Chandler. As of February 2024, the Roloffs have seven grandchildren, with one on the way.
The Roloffs bought a fixer-upper farmhouse on 34-acres in Helvetia, Oregon, in 1990. Roloff worked to create Roloff Farm, which now features pumpkins, pirate ship on a lake, three-story treehouse, full-size Medieval castle, regulation soccer field, volleyball court, mine shaft, and tunnels. There are also outbuildings and restored barns. Roloff Farm is open to the public during certain seasons of the year, such as pumpkin season. It receives approximately 30,000 visitors annually. The Roloffs expanded with the purchase of the 80-acre property next to the farm in 2010. After the Roloffs divorced in 2016, Matt bought out Amy's share in June 2019 for $975,000. Both Matt's sons, Zach and Jeremy, put an offer to buy the 34 acre farm, but with negotiations not going as planned, Matt rejected them both, leading to heavy family disputes. Matt then put the property up for public sale. He originally listed it in May 2022 for $4 million but did not get a buyer. He relisted it for sale for $3.395 million in August 2023. When he did not find a buyer, he began to list the six-bedroom house for short-term rentals.
Roloff appeared as an extra in the movie, Under the Rainbow. He also appeared as an Ewok in the Star Wars TV movie Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. He is good friends with fellow little person and actor Martin Klebba, who appeared in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, and is also a member of a leading athletic club for little people, the LA Breakers.
Roloff worked as a computer programmer for Silicon Valley companies including Altos Computer Systems in the late 1980s. He sold systems software to Fortune 500 companies. A friend encouraged him to take a job with Sequent Computer Systems, which was headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, in order to escape the long work hours and stress of Silicon Valley. Matt and his wife Amy relocated to the Portland area in 1990, while she was pregnant with twins Jeremy and Zachary.
