The struggle of being Pete Davidson

If you see him on the stage in his Netflix special Alive from New York, Pete Davidson looks like that classmate always ready to make everyone laugh. He doesn’t have Dave Chappelle’s dialectical force or Ricky Gervais’ sharp tongue, but from the top of its 26 years, Davidson puts on stage, just as in his life, all the boldness of someone who got up there a bit by chance. 

Part of the cast of the Saturday Night Live from 2014, one of the youngest actors to ever be part of the show, Davidson owes part of his success to director Judd Apatow and Bill Hader. If the first one chose him for a small role in Trainwreck (following Amy Schumer's advice), it was Hader to recommend Davidson to Lorne Michaels, creator and producer of SNL. Despite his talent and the success of his Weekend Update segment, Davidson has always had a small role in SNL, as stated by the same Pete during his special. Maybe it was for that time when he made fun of the bandage of the republican senator Dan Crenshaw comparing him to “a hitman from a porn movie”, or maybe for when he made fun of Kanye West with the slogan "Make Kanye Great Again”. 

And if Davidson was then forced to pay for the joke on Crenshaw with an official apology, the same can be said for what he did with West. Literally. Guest of Kid Cudi for his birthday party at Nobu, Davidson decided to pay for what he thought were the only three guests of the evening: him, Cudi and Timothée Chalamet. However, he had not taken into account the surprise arrival of Kanye, who in addition to asking for a private room, decided to take "something special, something that is not even on the menu”. 

It doesn’t matter, cause Davidson's love for Cudi is no secret at all. Quite the opposite. The passion for the author of Pursuit of Happiness is perhaps one of the strongest aspects of Pete's life, who has never missed the opportunity to define Kid Cudi "the greatest rapper ever to exist". After losing his father on 9/11, Pete Davidson has long struggled with depression and suicide delusions, as he has explained several times over the years. “I would have killed myself. Absolutely 100%. I seriously think that if Man on the Moon hadn't come out, I wouldn't have been here ”, referring to Cudi's album released in 2009. A topic that arose again last year when Davidson wrote on his Instagram account that he didn't want to live more on this planet, to then decide to close his social profile. A consequence of his breakup with Ariana Grande after one of Hollywood's fastest and most weird engagements. After meeting on the set of Saturday Night Live, the two began to hang out more and more assiduously, arriving at officializing their engagement after a few months. Davidson for his part had dealt the relationship in the best way, relying on his punk impulsiveness to tattoo Ariana's surname, her rabbit logo and the phrase "Mille tendresse", a reference to the film Breakfast at Tiffany's just like the one on the neck of the singer. To know the epilogue of their relationship you just need to know that this very last tattoo was covered with another one, a huge 'Cursed', written in capital letters. 

We do not know to which curse Davidson refers to if to the one about the false expectations about his sexual talents after Ariana Grande's statements (look for Big Dick Energy if you are really curious) or if to that self-destructive attitude that allows you to come out in pieces from the relationship with one of the biggest pop-stars in life. But that was to be expected because despite the bracelet with the initials AGD (Ariana Grande Davidson) and the articles that called them "a perfect fit", seeing them together has always been difficult. Ariana with her pop queen demeanour and Pete with his Scumbro look, as Vanity Fair called it two years ago. 

Ignoring the nickname "First Couple of Streetwear" given to him by Rachel Tashjian, Ariana Grande's presence was certainly not needed to put Davidson's streetwear attitude in the spotlight. If streetwear it can be defined. A direct evolution of the normcore, the Scumbro is the hypebeast capable to mix brands like Supreme and Palace with others more Vermont mom like REI and Patagonia. Combine a vintage t-shirt with a pair of Gucci slides, bring together Demna Gvasalia, Virgil Abloh and your trusted second-hand market in the same outfit. Pete Davidson unwittingly transformed himself into a style icon, a "fashion it boy" who does not run the risk of becoming a real one according to Lawrence Schlossman, brand director at Grailed who for years spied the outfits of celebrities such as Jonah Hill, Shia Labeouf and Davidson. But if the first two for Schlossman have embraced their status as a fashion icon, Davidson continues his lifestyle philosophy also in clothing, "I dress how I dressed when I was, like, 10". 

This childish approach is nothing new for Pete, who at the age of 26 found himself facing what could be called his biopic. The King of Staten Island, the film directed by Judd Apatow and written by Apatow together with Davidson himself, tells about the difficulty and fear of growing up and getting out of your comfort zone. It doesn't matter if the protagonist is called Scott and not Pete, what we see on the screen is the life of Davidson outside the glossy world of outfits and relationships with the stars. A return his mother’s basement (where he still lives), Kid Cudi as a lifeline and the enormous difficulty to be yourself. Pete Davidson, King of Staten Island.