‘I Was A Sad Boy.’ Pete Davidson Gets Real About Burning Off 200 Tattoos And I’m Wincing Just Reading About It

Pete Davidson wearing sunglasses, showing off his many tattoos with arms wide open in The King of Staten Island

(Image credit: Universal)

Pete Davidson is known for his time on Saturday Night Live and his co-ownership of a Staten Island Ferry but he’s also a guy you’d likely recognize on the street if you saw him simply by all his tattoos. At least you used to. He’s in the process of having most of them removed and the process sounds absolutely horrible.

Davidson appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon ahead of the Saturday Night Live 50th anniversary celebration, a show where he spent eight years, and the topic of his tattoos came up. It sounds like he’s done with tattoos, but he’s putting himself through what sounds like an incredibly painful process in order to get rid of them. Davidson said…

It’s horrible. It’s worse [than getting them]. They have to burn off a layer of your skin. And then it has to heal for like six to eight weeks, and you can’t get in the sunlight. And then you got to do it like 12 more times. Yeah, so really think about that Game of Thrones tattoo you’re thinking of getting, alright?

You lost me at “burn off a layer of your skin.” That’s just about the worst thing I could think of, and considering the extent of Pete Davidson’s tattoos (they’re all up and down his arms) that's a lot of burned skin.

Honestly, Pete Davidson’s Game of Thrones tattoo joke is exactly the reason I have never gotten a tattoo. While it’s occasionally crossed my mind, I often wonder if the thing I’m going to want a tattoo of today is something I’m still going to want several years from now. Now that I know what I’d have to go through if I did change my mind, forget it.

It seems Pete Davidson tended to get tattoos whenever he thought he had a reason, but that has led to him having to get tattoos removed before. When Davidson got tattoos for Kim Kardashian when the two were together, that he then got removed when they split. Prior to dating Kardashian, he got two tattoos of then-fiancee Ariana Grande.

Pete Davidson says he might keep two or three of his tattoos, but that’s the tiniest fraction of the number he has had done over the years. That’s a lot of burning skin. Davidson told Fallon how many tattoos he has, and explained why he got them, saying…

Probably like 200. Yeah, I was a sad boy.

Pete Davidson clearly connects his tattoos to something of a misspent youth. He says he’s now “trying to be an adult” and that’s why he’s having the tattoos removed. Whatever the actual tattoos are, the act of getting them was something he did in a part of his life he’s ready to leave behind.

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CinemaBlend’s resident theme park junkie and amateur Disney historian, Dirk began writing for CinemaBlend as a freelancer in 2015 before joining the site full-time in 2018. He has previously held positions as a Staff Writer and Games Editor, but has more recently transformed his true passion into his job as the head of the site's Theme Park section. He has previously done freelance work for various gaming and technology sites. Prior to starting his second career as a writer he worked for 12 years in sales for various companies within the consumer electronics industry. He has a degree in political science from the University of California, Davis. Is an armchair Imagineer, Epcot Stan, Future Club 33 Member.