Pete Davidson on His Tattoo Regret After Kim Kardashian Ink

Pete Davidson regrets getting numerous tattoos, as evidenced by the many painful laser tattoo removal sessions he has undergone in recent months.

But there’s one bit of ink that particularly makes the 31-year-old comedian grimace when he looks back on it.

In his July 28 appearance on Hot Ones — the interview show in which guests eat increasingly spicy chicken wings while host Sean Evans quizzes them on their careers — Davidson admitted that a sizable tattoo on his chest that was inspired by a run-in with Dave Chappelle is his biggest source of tattoo-related regret.

The ink joined other embarrassing tattoos, including multiple tats inspired by his short-lived romance with Kim Kardashian.

‘I’ve never admitted this because it’s so humiliating,’ Davidson began. ‘But when I was like 20 at a comedy club — it might have been the Knitting Factory when Hannibal Buress used to run it — I did a set. I was like 19 or 20.’

Pete — who recently broke his silence about his impending fatherhood — hadn’t yet made his Saturday Night Live debut at the time, recalled how his set featured a celebrity guest in the audience: Chappelle.

The comedian was in his wilderness period at the time, after he stepped back from his Comedy Central series Chappelle’s Show in 2005 due to dissatisfaction over the direction of its delayed third season. 

According to Pete, his comedy set was likely in 2012 or 2013, and it wasn’t until 2014 that Chappelle started making high-profile guest appearances in the lead up to his return to doing major comedy tours and releasing high-profile stand-up specials.

‘So seeing him was crazy,’ Davidson said. ‘He was like, “I watched your whole set. It was really good.”‘

The future SNL star couldn’t pass up the opportunity to pick a veteran comedian’s brain. 

‘How do you keep coming up with new stuff? I’m working on new stuff. It’s difficult,’ he recalled asking Chappelle.

Davidson said the Half Baked star replied, ‘Jokes come and go, but swag is forever.’

Something about the pedestrian statements spoke to Davidson at that moment, and he was inspired enough to add it to his burgeoning tattoo collection.

The rising star got the quotation inked high up on his chest, just above one of his nipples, but he didn’t bother to include anything indicating that the phrase was said by Chappelle.

Davidson explained that friends and fans who saw him shirtless assumed that he had come up with the expression. 

‘You know, I could have just told people he said that to me,’ he admitted. ‘I didn’t put “dash Chappelle.”‘

His solution, rather than to add credit to the ink, was to simply ‘black it out’ with an enormous ‘Jaws’ tattoo featuring a shark inspired by the Great White in Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster.

‘I just put a giant shark over it,’ he admitted. 

Although Davidson appears to have felt awkward about seeming to take credit for Chappelle said at the time, the tattoo might have created other problems for him in subsequent years after Chappelle developed a reputation for devoting large portions of his latter-day stand-up shows to jokes that some fans consider to be transphobic.

But Davidson’s fans will be seeing much less of his Jaws tattoo and the embarrassing ink that it covered, as the comic is now engaged in a lengthy, costly and painful campaign to erase his infamous ink. 

In October of last year, Pete revealed the extent of the removal sessions so far when he flashed his bare arms, revealing that the ink was significantly faded.

In January, People reported that he had already spent at least $200,000 on the procedure.

Then, in February, Davidson admitted on Late Night with Seth Meyers that he hopes to have all of his tattoos erased by the time he’s 40, which is a doable timeline, as it could take about a decade to remove all of his ink.

In April, he delved into why he covered his body with tattoos and why he now wants to clear the slate in an interview with Variety.

‘I used to be a drug addict and I was a sad person, and I felt ugly and that I needed to be covered up,’ Davidson admitted. ‘So I’m just removing them and starting fresh, because that’s what I think works best for me and for my brain.

‘When I look in the mirror, I don’t want the reminder of “Oh yeah, you were a f***ing drug addict. Like, that’s why you have SpongeBob smoking a joint on your back,”‘ he joked at the time.

Davidson described the tattoo removal process as ‘horrible’ in the profile.

‘It’s like putting your arm on a grill and burning off a layer,’ he explained. ‘It sucks, I’m not gonna lie.’

Davidson first shared his plans to remove at least some of his tattoos in 2021.

At the time, he told Seth Meyers that it was a practical decision, as he wastes multiple hours getting the ink covered with makeup when he’s shooting films and TV shows.

‘You have to get there three hours earlier to cover all your tattoos, because for some reason, people in movies, they don’t have them that much,’ he said. 

He later added more cringey tattoos, including several related to his former girlfriend Kim Kardashian.

Among the most embarrassing was the text, ‘My girlfriend is a lawyer,’ which he had linked above his clavicle.

He also had her name inked on his chest and got a tattoo of Disney’s Aladdin with Jasmine, a reference to the SNL sketch they starred in together when he was the guest host, which helped spark their romance. 

Pete will now get a fresh start as he prepares to welcome his first child with his girlfriend, the English-born model and actress Elsie Hewitt.

She shared their baby news earlier this month with an Instagram post featuring Davidson lovingly caressing her midriff and a sonogram image showing the fetus.