Pete Davidson

• 1. Introduction

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  Pete Davidson first stepped onto a stage at sixteen, in a Staten Island bowling alley, because his friends dared him to. One of those friends, Matt Festa, later became a professional baseball player. Davidson grew up to be an American comedian, actor, and writer. That dare started a career that carried him from a New York borough to network television, film sets, and a long run of public scrutiny. This documentary asks how a teenager marked by an early loss learned to turn his own life into material. It asks what that openness cost him and what it earned him. It also asks why his private choices drew such loud attention.

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• 2. Staten Island Childhood

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  On the 16th of November 1993, Peter Michael Davidson was born in the Staten Island borough of New York City. His parents were Amy, whose maiden name was Waters, and Scott Matthew Davidson. Scott was a New York City firefighter with Ladder 118. He died in service during the September 11th attacks, along with the rest of his unit. He was last seen running up the stairs of the Marriott World Trade Center, just before the building was destroyed. His Requiem Mass was held at St. Clare's Catholic Church in Great Kills, Staten Island.

  Davidson was seven years old. He later told The New York Times that the experience was "overwhelming". He said he acted out in school because of the trauma, and at one point he pulled out his hair until he was bald.

  He has a younger sister named Casey, and he was raised Catholic. His father was predominantly of Jewish ancestry, with some distant German, Irish and Italian roots. His mother is mostly of Irish ancestry, with some distant German roots.

  His schooling moved around. He attended St. Joseph by-the-Sea High School, then Tottenville High School in Huguenot. He then transferred to Xaverian High School in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and graduated from there in 2011. He enrolled at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights but lasted only one semester. He dropped out to pursue comedy full time.

  In October 2016, Davidson told the morning radio show The Breakfast Club that he had struggled with suicidal thoughts when he was younger. He said the music of Kid Cudi saved his life.

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• 3. Road to Saturday Night Live

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  The first time Davidson appeared on screen was in the third episode of the MTV comedy series Failosophy, which premiered on the 28th of February 2013. The next month he turned up in an episode of the MTV2 series Guy Code, the first of four appearances there. In June 2013, his first televised stand-up aired on the Comedy Central program Gotham Comedy Live, which films comedians at the Gotham Comedy Club in New York City. A month later he made his first appearance on Nick Cannon Presents: Wild 'N Out. He also landed a role on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. In 2014 he joined the cast of a Fox comedy pilot called Sober Companion, but it never became a series.

  On the 27th of September 2014, Davidson joined Saturday Night Live with the premiere of the show's 40th season. He was twenty years old. He was the first cast member born in the 1990s and one of the youngest the show had ever had. The route there ran through Bill Hader, whom he met while filming a small part in the Judd Apatow comedy Trainwreck. Hader told producer Lorne Michaels about him, and Davidson got a chance to audition.

  His debut earned positive notices. One sketch was an Indiana Jones-style adventure with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, in which the two men were pelted with poison darts. Another had Norman Reedus shoot him in the chest with an arrow. His best-known character was Chad, an easily distracted, apathetic pool boy who gets tangled up with a lonely housewife. Chad first appeared in a season 41 episode hosted by Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

  In March 2015, Davidson took part in the Comedy Central Roast of Justin Bieber, and his set was praised as one of the best of the night. One joke targeted Snoop Dogg, host Kevin Hart, and their 2004 film Soul Plane. Davidson called it "the worst experience of his life involving a plane". The line landed because his father had died in the September 11 attacks. In 2016, he was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list.

  In January 2019, Davidson announced a limited run of shows with John Mulaney across New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, titled "Sundays with Pete & John". The two had grown close after appearing together on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and on SNL. After the 44th-season finale that May, Travis M. Andrews of The Washington Post called Davidson the season's most memorable performer and its breakout star. Andrews credited his willingness to mine his personal struggles and admit his comedic missteps.

  Davidson stayed for eight seasons, from 2014 to 2022. He was absent for long stretches of season 47, and shortly before its finale it was announced that it would be his last.

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• 4. Confessional Comedy

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  One writer's phrase for Davidson's act is "a series of brutal truths and vulgar confessions". The description fits a comedian who builds his routines from his own life. He talks about marijuana, sex, and relationships. He tells stories from his awkward high school years and from the dormitory at St. Francis College. Audiences often find him relatable because he leaves the embarrassing parts in.

  He also jokes about the most sensitive subject in his life, the loss of his father in the September 11 attacks. Davidson has said that this helps him. The tragedy hit him young and left him feeling powerless, and joking about it gives him a sense of power over that feeling.

  This approach has produced three comedy specials. The first, Pete Davidson: SMD, was filmed by Comedy Central in New York City in April 2016. Pete Davidson: Alive from New York arrived on Netflix in February 2020. Pete Davidson: Turbo Fonzarelli followed in 2024.

  At the 46th People's Choice Awards, Alive from New York earned a nomination for Comedy Act of 2020.

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• 5. Beyond the Sketch

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  In 2019, Davidson starred in Jason Orley's Big Time Adolescence and also served as an executive producer. That same year he took supporting parts in What Men Want, The Dirt, The Angry Birds Movie 2, and John Turturro's The Big Lebowski spin-off The Jesus Rolls.

  In May 2020 came The King of Staten Island, a semi-autobiographical comedy-drama. Davidson starred in it and co-wrote it with Judd Apatow, who directed. At the 46th People's Choice Awards, he was nominated for Comedy Movie Star of 2020 for the role.

  In April 2021, Netflix cast him as Joey Ramone in a biopic called I Slept With Joey Ramone, based on a memoir by the late singer's brother. Davidson was also set to co-write it and serve as an executive producer. That August he appeared as Blackguard in James Gunn's The Suicide Squad. In 2022 he was in Bodies Bodies Bodies and Meet Cute, and he voiced the title dog in Marmaduke, released on Netflix on the 6th of May 2022.

  In 2023, Davidson starred in Bupkis, a Peacock series he also co-wrote. It debuted to mixed reviews. The Guardian called it "messy" and said his existential ambling suggested "a dumber Louie" and his celebrity travails "a dumber Atlanta". Peacock renewed the show for a second season, but Davidson chose not to move forward with one.

  That same year he appeared in three high-profile action franchise films. He played Phlektik in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Bowie in Fast X, and he voiced Mirage in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.

  In January 2026, he began a weekly video podcast on Netflix called The Pete Davidson Show.

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• 6. Body and Mind

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  At age seventeen or eighteen, Davidson was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. He receives intravenous biologic therapy for it. He has used medical marijuana for pain management and also recreationally.

  On the 6th of March 2017, he announced on Instagram that he had quit drugs and was sober for the first time in eight years. He later explained on comedian Marc Maron's podcast that cannabis was the only drug he had used. He has since cut back on it considerably. He said the personal and emotional problems he had blamed on daily use were actually caused by borderline personality disorder, which had only recently been diagnosed. He has been in treatment for it since.

  On the 3rd of December 2018, Davidson shared an Instagram post in which he expressed thoughts of suicide, and then he deleted his account. Followers, along with his former fiancée Ariana Grande, raised the alarm through social media posts. The New York Police Department conducted a wellness check. Davidson was at the Saturday Night Live studio, preparing for the last episode before the holiday break.

  When the show returned on the 19th of January 2019, he and John Mulaney, a comedian and former SNL writer, made humorous references to the post during the Weekend Update segment.

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• 7. Lines Crossed

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  In March 2019, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn demanded an apology from Davidson over an SNL sketch. In it he compared the Catholic Church to R. Kelly, an entertainer who had recently been charged with sexual abuse of minors. The diocese called it a "disgraceful and offensive skit" and said it offended millions. Davidson's remarks came after the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens agreed to a record $27.5 million settlement for sex abuse allegations in September 2018.

  Another backlash followed his mockery of Dan Crenshaw, then a Republican congressional candidate. Crenshaw wears an eyepatch because of a wound he suffered while serving in Afghanistan. Davidson compared his look to a movie criminal and added a dismissive aside about how Crenshaw lost his eye. After the criticism, Davidson apologized, and the following Saturday he appeared beside Crenshaw on SNL's Weekend Update. Crenshaw accepted the apology and urged Americans to "never forget" the sacrifices of veterans.

  The sharpest criticism came in 2025, when Davidson signed up for the Riyadh Comedy Festival. Joey Shea, a Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the Saudi government used the festival to whitewash its human rights abuses. Critics singled out Davidson because his father died in the September 11 attacks and because of alleged Saudi involvement in them. The source notes that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens. Comedians including Marc Maron, Shane Gillis, and Zach Woods also slammed the event and its performers.

  On the podcast This Past Weekend with Theo Von, Davidson explained his decision. "I get the routing and then I see the number and I go, 'I'll go.'" Dustin Rowles of the site Pajiba answered that the festival was being promoted on Saudi Arabia's own tourism page.

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• 8. Private Life in Public

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  In May 2018, Davidson began dating singer Ariana Grande, shortly after she broke up with Mac Miller. They confirmed their engagement in June 2018, and called it off in October 2018 after Miller's death. Grande wrote a song titled "Pete Davidson" for her album Sweetener. She also referenced him in "Thank U, Next" with the lyric "Even almost got married / And for Pete I'm so thankful".

  In January 2019, he was reported to be seeing actress Kate Beckinsale, and the pair had split by April. When the media commented on their age difference, Davidson said such a gap was new to him. He suggested reporters instead ask Leonardo DiCaprio, Alec Baldwin, Larry King, and Donald Trump.

  In October 2021, Davidson and Kim Kardashian were first spotted out together, after she appeared on SNL. In a Disney-themed sketch she hosted, they played Jasmine and Aladdin and shared an on-screen kiss. They began dating in November 2021 and split in August 2022, after nine months. Kanye West, whose divorce filing from Kardashian dated to February 2021, referenced the relationship in his 2022 track "Eazy". He threatens to beat Davidson up, and the video shows a claymation figure of Davidson being kidnapped and buried.

  In March 2025, Davidson began a relationship with model and actress Elsie Hewitt. They had a daughter in December 2025, and in May 2026 it was reported that they had separated.

  On the 4th of March 2023, Davidson crashed his car into a house while driving late at night. No one was injured. He was charged with a misdemeanor for reckless driving and agreed to a diversion program, with 50 hours of community service and 12 hours of traffic school.

  In March 2022, Blue Origin named him an honorary guest on NS-20, a suborbital flight of its New Shepard craft. The flight was rescheduled, and the company later said he was no longer able to join the crew. In 2023, he and fellow SNL comedian Colin Jost bought a decommissioned Staten Island Ferry boat, which appeared in the film Screamboat.

  His politics have been visible too. He supported Hillary Clinton in 2016, and on the 5th of December 2017 he posted that he had gotten a tattoo of her on his leg. Clinton joked that it made things less awkward, since she had had a Pete Davidson tattoo for years. By 2025, he had about 200 tattoos removed, saying he was "trying to clean slate it, trying to be an adult". He said he intended to keep two or three.

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