Yahoo Movies Pete Davidson Says Being The Butt Of ‘SNL’ Jokes Was “Confusing” & His Dating Life Isn’t “Interesting”
Former Saturday Night Live regular Pete Davidson says doing comedy on the NBC show wasn’t always easy after being the punchline of his castmates’ jokes.
In an appearance on the Real Ones With Jon Berthnal podcast, the 29-year-old Davidson said that despite being in show business for nearly half his life, becoming the butt of jokes for his high-profile dating life made for some “confusing” moments.
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“When it’s your own show,” he said, “and I’ll be sitting in the back watching the cold open and topical political humor or whatever in the culture, and they’re making fun of you and you gotta walk out and do a sketch next and hit your mark [and] the show just made fun of you, so why [is the audience] going to laugh at you? They just dogged you.”
He added, “And you’re like, ‘I’m a f*cking loser, man.’”
While noting that he remains close with his former costars and owes his “life” to SNL creator Lorne Michaels, his newfound notoriety made for some “f*cking confusing” situations.
Adding to the confusion: Davidson couldn’t really understand the public fascination with his romantic life.
“I’m in my 20s and I’ve dated people,” he said, “and for some reason that’s very crazy and interesting to people. I don’t think it’s interesting.” During his 2014-2022 tenure on SNL, the comedian and actor dated Kim Kardashian, Margaret Qualley, Kaia Gerber, Phoebe Dynevor, Emily Ratajkwoski, Chase Sui Wonders and Ariana Grande, who wrote the song “Thank U, Next” allegedly about their romance.
“I’ve been in show business for, like, half my life almost, for 14 or 15 years and on a national TV show,” Davidson said. “In 12 years I’ve dated 10 people. I don’t think that’s that crazy, but to some people, that’s very interesting. That became all anyone would talk about.” He added that the high-profile status of the women he’s dated was a natural result of his job.
“These people that I’ve dated, I met them at work,” he said. “I wasn’t in anyone’s DMs [and] no one was in mine. I worked at one of the five Hollywood epicenters of where you meet people. And that’s how it happened.”
The King of Staten Island star, who’ll be seen in the upcoming Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, said being in the “zeitgeist” for his personal life rather than his work was “a really shitty feeling.”
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