Pete Davidson is promoting The Pickup on Amazon, with Eddie Murphy and Keke Palmer. Pete is just 31, which is surprising to me because he’s been famous for so long. He’s expecting his first child, with his girlfriend, Elsie Hewitt, and is sporting a mustache. Pete had an interview on The Breakfast Club this week, and is making the most headlines for talking about how the Big D-ck Energy comments back in his Ariana Grande era hurt his feelings. Ariana of course fed into those stories by tweeting about it and including a segment in her “thank u, next” video talking about an ex’s big one. I was impressed with how open Pete was on The Breakfast Club, but he’s been like that for years and it’s the reason he’s famous. Here’s some of what Pete said and the video is below.
In a Wednesday, Aug. 31, episode of The Breakfast Club, Davidson, 31, reflected on the attention he received throughout his early career years on Saturday Night Live, specifically for his romantic life. Davidson recalled to Charlamagne Tha God, “I brought a lot of pop culture into the show, like I made it [a] sort of tabloidly, trendy thing unintentionally.”
“Also, I was embarrassed by it because… no one talked about any work I was doing,” he shared. “They were just like, ‘Oh, that’s the f— stick.’ And that hurt so much.”
He added that SNL crew members, friends and family noticed how “sad” and “embarrassed” he was about the attention. “No one was outrightly mean by any means,” Davidson said.
Charlamagne, 47, chimed in, initially appearing confused at Davidson’s discomfort. “You was banging a lot of hot chicks and you had a 10-inch p-nis,” he said.
Davidson sighed and laughed, “You know, on paper, that sounds great.”
The comedian elaborated, “It’s embarrassing, ’cause, you know… It’s Hollywood. Everybody f—- everyone.” He questioned, “Why are they focusing on me?” adding that he thinks the viral attention was because he is “not Glen Powell handsome.”
“I’m just like this dude that tells d— jokes and is a drug addict,” Davidson quipped.
Davidson went on to say, “I don’t want to victimize myself in any way because I’m cool, but the sexualization of me — if that was a girl, people would be like, there would be a march for it… Seriously. You’re just talking about my d— all day.”
When asked where “big d— energy” started, Davidson replied, “Uh it was I think it was like the New York Times or something when I started dating someone that I guess they considered out of my league, which I think everyone is out of my league, but you know, uh they were like, ‘This guy must have big d— energy.’ And then someone confirmed it.”
The comedian also recalled how the spotlight on his personal life made navigating relationships challenging.
“It just got to a point where I was… I got really tired of my whole career just being like my personal life,” he said. “And living through that is it’s sort of traumatic. Like not to be like lame, but like it’s traumatic to live in your own crap all the time.”
Pete also explained why he’s not on Instagram anymore, because he didn’t want to be as accessible and he would just focus on the negative comments. As for his hurt at the BDE comments and how everyone was talking about his love life, he revealed years ago that he has borderline personality disorder, which is often characterized by love bombing, idealizing and then discarding partners (my words). I’m sure there’s some of that tied up in him hating the attention on his love life. On TBC Pete said he quit doing Bupkis because it got too enmeshed with his personal life. “I got really tired of my whole career just being like my personal life… and living through that is sort of traumatic.”
I understand what he’s saying about how hurtful it is when people focus on his d-ck. I grew up with the narrative that men like it when we talk about their d-cks. Younger men are pushing back against some of the toxicity around their sexuality and I appreciate Pete doing that here. It sounds like Pete is also stung by the memes about how he scores just about every woman. He did show up at countless public places with so many hot women. (People forget about Kate Beckinsale, but those two were all over the place for a few weeks.) It looked like he wasn’t trying to lie low at all, although he mentioned on TBC how hard it was to navigate dates. He said he did the Reformation underwear campaign because he wanted to capitalize on the narrative about him. You can see the growth in him as he’s gotten sober and is being more thoughtful about his career.
Here’s Pete’s interview. He covers the BDE stuff around minute 20. Around minute 31 he discusses his Hillary Clinton tattoo and why he’s not removing it. That part is well worth watching and respect to him for that. At minute 43 he talks about how much he looks forward to being a dad. He said some outlets knew that Elsie was pregnant early on but that they kept it quiet until the two of them could announce it themselves. The tabloids kind of forced their hand.
- New York, NY – Ariana Grande, who turns 25 tomorrow, stepped out with her fiancee Pete Davidson while on a coffee run. Pictured: Pete Davidson, Ariana Grande BACKGRID USA 25 JUNE 2018 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
Photos of Pete Davidson and Ariana Grande are from 2018. Credit: Backgrid, Faye’s Vision/Cover Images, Todd Williamson/January Images/Backgrid
“I guess they considered out of my league, which I think everyone is out of my league”
Him thinking everyone is out of my league is a bit heart wrenching, because one of his former paramours definitely didn’t deserve his company…initials KK 😒
I hope that Pete continues to grow and stays on the path of therapy and recovery.
I barely knew who Ariana Grande was back then, but now I cringe at the idea of someone like Pete who is so open about his mental health struggles being with someone with a long history of self-absorbed, toxic behavior. Didn’t it end very badly? Shudder.
Ariana’s ex Mac Miller died of accidental overdose a few months into Ariana and Pete’s relationship. She was clearly very affected by it, I think they broke up shortly before she and Pete started up together. A month after Mac Miller died, Ariana and Pete were over. I mean, it was pretty insane for them to get engaged when they barely knew each other. That whole relationship was never going to end well and I’m glad they didn’t get married.
But he was on suicide watch after their breakup, and now he’s calling her out for attention-seeking behavior following their breakup. I also just finished Jennette McCurdy’s book, which doesn’t put Ariana in a great light, and then cross-referencing that with tanking her marriage to have an affair with a married father of a new baby, like, I’m not feeling great with who she is as a human being.
As a 57 year old Woman…I have seen the TRAGEDY of a society/humanity that puts so much focus on the size of a Man’s sex organ….😱 the BLOWBACK of that has pretty decimated EVERYTHING 🫨
What I ADORE about Pete is he’s vulnerable smart & funny AF… so I OVERSTOOD why he pulled based on THAT alone…I’ve seen almost ALL his work outside of SNL and have ALWAYS been entertained 😁
You are not wrong. Male insecurity is the source of so many societal ills, including our political process.
💯
“if that was a girl, people would be like, there would be a march for it”
I totally understand him, but this is weird thing to say. Women (especially teenagers) get sexualized all the time even on mainstream media. It is true some men like being written like that, but I think, since it was an ex who was more famous, powerful than him started it and he wasn’t known that much by the public at the time, I see how it would affect his work and relationships.
Bill Burr talked about meeting Pete in an elevator when Pete was doing standups and since he was too young, his mother was with him at his gigs. Then, he got SNL again at a very young age. So, he got that work ethic and ambition to do good at comedy scene. Then, all people knew about him got reduced to his penis. It seems like going away a little did good for him and his mental health though.
I agree, that comment annoyed me, too. I get what pete’s saying and I am not making excuses for it. Sexualising a person in this way is not cool. However. Sadly, there would NOT be a march for it if this was a girl. It happens all the time, and people don’t care.
Yea…Bless him 😬…but most Men don’t have the intellectual NUANCE to properly FRAME THAT ARGUMENT…it would require a divorcing from the insidious male dominated reality we are ALL forced to live in…and THAT AIN’T HAPPENING HERE! I do hope one day he’s able to ACHIEVE that level of awareness & understanding…I wish THAT for ALL MEN! The 🌎 would be a better & safer place if that happened…IMAGINE…✨️
Yeah. Maybe it would have been better if he had included a statement reflecting on how a lesser known young woman who dated like he did would have been treated worse by the public, whether she was conventionally attractive or not.
I read that part and snorted. I must have missed the march for Sydney Sweeney or Jennifer Lawrence before her, and Salma Hayek even before that.
BPD is a very serious disorder that will make parenting more challenging for him. Best wishes to his child.
I really like Pete. He’s not perfect, but he’s so open to learning and doing better you can’t help but root for him.
I really like Pete. That said, I remember him feeding into the BDE stuff too during that era by retweeting tweets, etc.
Yeah he admits feeding into it which does make some of his comments slightly disingenuous but maybe he’s changed his mind in thought he had to play along with the whole thing
I can understand being uncomfortable getting it talked about constantly, and we definitely need more conversations about male body standards and female impropriety, but boy get out of here with this “march” nonsense. If people cared about women or women’s rights that much, we would not have the president we have currently.
I hope he’s getting the help he needs and stabilizing a bit with the lower profile, but he definitely isn’t helping himself by dating all of these high profile women, either, and he needs to be honest about that. He should know the industry that he’s in by now. That, IMO, is some of the BPD at work. The love/hate relationship with the need to feel important and loved and swinging wildly amongst extremes when he’s stressed.
I have to say I am surprised by the number of people (we women, not just here, not specific to this article) who cannot get behind sympathy for his feelings of exploitation. Can’t we hold the same standard for shitty behavior no matter the stated gender? It’s too tantamount to letting the offenders off the hook.
Isn’t the unspoken addition to BDE, is that he’s so ugly, the only reason a gorgeous girl would date him is because he has a big d*ck? That kind of joke is maybe funny once.