Pete Davidson said the Dave Chappelle quote he tattooed on his chest was so embarrassing he covered it with a shark from “Jaws.”
Pete Davidson got real about one of the dumbest things he’s ever inked on his body—a tattoo inspired by Dave Chappelle that he now calls “so humiliating.”
While chowing down on spicy wings during a recent stop on Hot Ones, Pete told host Sean Evans about a wild moment from his early stand-up days.
He was around 19 or 20, doing a set, when he spotted Chappelle in the crowd. That alone made his brain short-circuit.
“This was before (Dave) was back, so seeing him was like crazy, going ‘What the f**k?’” Pete said, still sounding kinda shook. After the set,
Chappelle gave him props and some advice that Pete clearly took way too literally.
“He goes, ‘Jokes come and go, but swag is forever.’ And guess who got that tattooed on his chest?” Spoiler alert: it was Pete.
Looking back, he’s not proud of it.
“So humiliating,” he said, admitting he never told anyone before now. Eventually, he decided to erase the whole thing by slapping a massive Jaws shark tattoo right over it.
“I covered it with Jaws because I needed something huge to black it out,” he explained. “I just put a giant shark over it. That’s pretty bad, dude—but he was like my idol. He still is, but that’s so dumb. I could’ve just told people he said that to me.”
Pete’s been on a mission to laser off a bunch of his old ink, and according to him, it’s been brutal on his wallet and his skin.
“I have to plan it in between work because it’s a six-week healing process each time you get one removed,” he told Variety earlier this year. “So, each tattoo is 10 to 12 sessions. That’s 60 weeks of your life right there on just one tattoo to remove… It’s pretty horrible. It’s like putting your arm on a grill and burning off a layer, and then you gotta do maintenance and let it heal properly. And it’s pretty tough. It sucks, I’m not gonna lie.”
Pete’s currently out promoting his new heist flick The Pickup, which hits theaters August 6.