Pete Davidson Says It'll Take '2 More Years' to Remove the Last of His Tattoos https://t.co/pOSManCmEj
— People (@people) July 5, 2021
Pete Davidson’s love of tattoos is well known. And not just the amount he has on him. His dedication to inking himself borders on dependency. Pete has a tattoo artist as a part of his entourage. Judd Aptow told a story about filming The King of Staten Island in which Pete had to be monitored for filming continuity. The minute he was cleared, he’d get tattooed on that area he was told to keep clean. Since he has an artist with him at all times, he’s very generous and offers free tattoos to the people around him. That’s nice, but he can also force the issue, like he did with Judd who simply didn’t want one. I don’t know, it’s a weird thing to pressure someone on, especially as it’s permanent. And it’s culturally insensitive when the person he’s pressuring, like Judd, is Jewish. But something has changed in Pete. He’s decided to get rid of all his tattoos. He said it’s going to take two years to do so. Ouch! What makes this situation even more intriguing is smartwater found a way to brand it. They asked Pete to team up with them their first Rehydration Day. Pete did his first pitch for them from a tattoo removal chair. I posted the bit below, but People has more about the removal process.
Pete Davidson recently revealed that he’s getting his tattoos removed, and said the process is not only incredibly painful, but embarrassing, thanks to some questionable designs he picked out when he was younger. Luckily, the Saturday Night Live star, 27, has found a way to capitalize on his tattoo regrets.
The comedian, writer, actor and producer teamed up with smartwater to help launch the first-ever Rehydration Day — an entire day dedicated to getting Americans rehydrated and replenished after the highly-anticipated, post-COVID July 4th holiday weekend — on Monday, July 5. And for his commercial spot, he took to the tattoo removal chair to talk about other past regrets.
Although Davidson is shown getting tattoos removed in his new smartwater commercial, speaking exclusively with PeopleTV host Jeremy Parsons, the star said it’s actually been “about four or five months” since his last session.
“We’re shooting some stuff and it takes like a month for it to heal. But like it’s pretty much off this hand,” Davidson said, holding both hands up to the camera to show the faded ink. “I get my next treatment [in] like a month or so. They said by the time I’m 30, they should all be gone. So they got like two more years left of this.”
The comedian (who’s known for his self-deprecating sense of humor) told PeopleTV he was “thrilled” to partner with smartwater but admitted he was in disbelief that such a “prestigious” company that’s teamed up with celebs like Jennifer Aniston and Gal Gadot in the past wanted to work with him.
“After they called…I fell on the floor and started laughing for about three hours,” he joked. “Honestly, as soon as I heard ‘smartwater brand deal’, I went deaf.”
“The [Rehydration Day] campaign is intended to encourage people to, you know, make smarter choices and keep living smarter,” Davidson explained about the initiative. “After the 4th of July, the world’s first ever Rehydration Day is dedicated to get our nation back on its feet, ‘Cause [there] will be partying on July 4th… It’s very important to stay hydrated the next day.”
I like the humor in the smartwater campaign, but the connection isn’t really working for me. But I’m probably not the demographic they were targeting either. I’m with Pete, though, I’d love to know who at smartwater thought to call Pete for a deal? Was it after they caught wind of this tattoo thing? I mean, good for Pete. If he’s going to endure that much physical discomfort and someone offers him spokesperson cash to ease the pain, yes please!
But why is Pete cleaning up all his ink? I get removing some art that no longer speaks to you or maybe some work that hasn’t aged well, but erasing a lifetime of it? That sounds therapeutic. Maybe he’s reinventing himself. Maybe it’s literally a clean slate approach to his next phase in life. Let’s face it, Pete doesn’t do things in small strides, when he takes a step, it’s a lunge. CB brought up an interesting theory that perhaps this drastic measure has something to do with his new love, Phoebe Dynevor? It could be that Phoebe is not a fan of tattoos. Or it could be that Pete has gotten ink for so many women he’s dated in the past, he decided to do the exact opposite this time. I was trying to find photos of the tatts he had cleaned up on his hands, I guess it was some knuckle work? I can’t see anything in the photos in the gallery from 2017 and 2018. Whenever he started the removal, he’s got a long way to go, I wish him luck. I wonder if he ends up keeping anything because it means too much to him to let go. I must admit, I’m a little more than curious to find out what motivated Pete on this journey and whether he deviates from his plan.
Here is Pete’s first smartwater commercial:
Photos of Pete and Phoebe at Wimbledon over the weekend
Embed from Getty Images
Photo creditTwitter, YouTube, Instagram, Getty Images and Avalon Red
It is seriously a painful process. I’m in the midst of having 3 removed myself (I got 2 of them very young and the one on my arm has no good memories associated with it because I ended up in the hospital right after getting it-unrelated to the tattoo LOL). One on my back won’t take 2 years but the other 2 definitely will. The process is quick but holy hell it hurts.
I’m having a small one on my wrist removed right now and it doesn’t hurt that much? The most painful part for me is that they ice the spot before treatment and I hate how that feels.
I’m considering removing the one I have: does it leave a scar/discoloration once removed? I’m very very wary of the process…
Oh man it kills me. Not so much the ones on my back but the one on my arm hurts so bad. It’s not super big but maybe it’s just the location (forearm).
Good for him. I hope he gets the results he wants. Pete seems like he could be a very entertaining friend, but hella exhausting to be in relationship with. I hope he’s using his resources to establish and maintain healthy support systems.
He talked about removing them with Seth Meyers. When he does a movie it takes hours every day to cover them up. Since he’d never thought he would be in movies, it never occured to him that his tattoos would be such a problem.
I’ve often wondered that with actors, being covered in a lot of visible tattoos really adds time to the make up artist’s job and the actors time in the makeup chair.
Not to mention how disrespectful it is for him to be going out and getting more tattoos during the process of making a film: you can’t cover it up because the makeup will cause infection, so the studio either needs to paint it out digitally or cause a continuity error which might not seem like a big deal, but it is several people’s jobs behind the scenes.
I thought he was dating Cindy Crawford’s daughter? Or is that someone else? I’m so out of it, I can’t keep up, lol.
They broke up because he wasn’t mentally in a good place or something. I think that was two girlfriends ago.
They look very cute together at Wimbledon but also screw both of them for breaking the lockdown and quarantine requirements for americans travelling to the uk and vice versa.
there have been so many of us unable to see our loved ones and these idiots have just been swanning around flaunting it in everyones faces like the rules dont apply to them
I think its very sensible of him to realize that being covered in tats isn’t great for the acting biz. Committing to gettimg them all removed for years is some serious shit. Good for him.
I remember reading an article about Lena Dunham and I can’t believe I’m saying this but she had some good insight into tattoos and recommended that a person draws their tattoo idea on a piece of paper, and then put it away and revisit it like a year later to see if they still really liked it. I’ve talked my siblings out of tattoos that way – tattoos they later admitted were really, really dumb.
I don’t have any tattoos partly because I don’t like pain, so if I did have any I don’t think I could ever go through the removal process that he’s doing. It makes me tense up just thinking about it. It seems so extreme to me that he’s removing all of them.
I hope this is a sign that he’s in a good place with his mental health. I worry that it’s the opposite. Everything he does seems so drastic and dramatic! I don’t know him, but if a friend was doing this I would worry they were unwell.
Given his issues with drug use and mental health, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the ink on him has associations he’d like to walk away from now. Everyone changes as they grow.
I wonder if he is just substituting one ritual for another. Time in a chair plus it’s painful, so it’s kind of an escape. Tattoo’s on then tattoo’s off.