Pete Davidson Says Being Sexualized After Ariana Grande Romance Was “Traumatic”
Pete Davidson says the world might have turned his love life into a meme, but living through it wasn’t nearly as fun as it looked from the outside. On The Breakfast Club this week, the 31-year-old comedian looked back at the whirlwind attention he got during his early Saturday Night Live years, especially after his short-lived engagement to Ariana Grande in 2018.
Pete said he unintentionally brought a “tabloidly, trendy thing” into SNL, but it embarrassed him that people were more interested in who he was dating than the work he was doing. “They were just like, ‘Oh, that’s the f— stick.’ And that hurt so much,” he admitted.
Friends, family, and crew members noticed how sad and uncomfortable he was, but it wasn’t because anyone was mean. It was the way the public sexualized him that made him feel off. Charlamagne Tha God cut in bluntly, pointing out Pete’s dating history and the internet’s obsession with his “10-inch” reputation. Pete chuckled, “You know, on paper, that sounds great,” but said the reality was embarrassing.
“It’s Hollywood. Everybody f—- everyone. Why are they focusing on me?” Pete said, joking that maybe it was because he’s “not Glen Powell handsome” but just “a dude that tells d— jokes and is a drug addict.” He added that if the same level of sexualization happened to a woman, “there would be a march for it.”
The now-infamous “big d— energy” phrase, Pete explained, started with a New York Times comment after he began dating someone considered “out of his league.” Ariana later fueled the frenzy by joking in a tweet that he was “like 10 inches,” which sparked endless memes. At the time, Pete told Variety he didn’t hate it and was just happy but now he says the constant focus on his personal life was exhausting and “sort of traumatic.”
“It just got to a point where I was… really tired of my whole career just being like my personal life,” Pete said. “And living through that is it’s sort of traumatic…to live in your own crap all the time.”
These days, Pete is expecting his first child with Elsie Hewitt and seems more protective of his peace. He still calls the internet “evil” and hates how easily people can “make anything up,” saying he’s worked hard to get his mind to a better place.
