How Old Is Pete Davidson? Age & Family Facts

The Short Answer: 32 Years Old

Peter Michael Davidson is 32 years old. Born and raised on Staten Island, New York, he started doing stand-up as a teenager — bombing, learning, and bombing again in New York comedy clubs — before a breakout that landed him on Saturday Night Live while he was still barely out of his teens.

Davidson’s comedy draws directly from his life: his father’s death, his mental health struggles (he has spoken openly about borderline personality disorder and depression), his tattoos, his dating life. That confessional style made him SNL’s resident millennial id — the cast member who seemed to be working through his twenties live on national television.

His Father: A 9/11 Hero

Davidson’s father, Scott Davidson, was a New York City firefighter who died responding to the September 11 attacks, when Pete was just seven years old. The loss is the defining fact of his biography — the wound his comedy keeps circling.

He has honored his father publicly for years: wearing his dad’s firefighter gear, getting memorial tattoos, and weaving Scott into stand-up and interviews. His semi-autobiographical film The King of Staten Island — directed by Judd Apatow — reimagines his own arrested adolescence as the story of a directionless young man growing up in the shadow of a heroic father’s death. Critics praised it as his most honest work.

Eight Seasons on Saturday Night Live

Davidson joined Saturday Night Live as a featured player while still a teenager — one of the youngest cast members the show had ever hired — and stayed for eight seasons. His signature bits included the self-lacerating “Weekend Update” commentaries, where he’d sit beside Colin Jost and roast his own life with a mix of charm and despair.

His SNL tenure coincided with his tabloid era, and the show mined it relentlessly — sketches about his love life, his tattoos, his controversies. He left the show to focus on film and stand-up, and his departure episode played like a graduation: the problem child of Studio 8H heading out into the world.

The Famous Relationships

Davidson’s dating history became a pop-culture phenomenon unto itself. His whirlwind engagement to Ariana Grande — after just weeks of dating — was the celebrity story of its season, complete with matching tattoos and a split that both later mined for art (her album, his stand-up).

What followed was a run of relationships with A-list women — Kate Beckinsale, Kaia Gerber, Phoebe Dynevor, Kim Kardashian — that turned “Pete Davidson’s girlfriend” into a recurring headline and made him an unlikely sex symbol. The internet’s fascination (“Big Dick Energy” discourse and all) bemused him; he’s joked that he has no idea why it keeps happening. His relationship with Kim Kardashian, which began after her SNL hosting gig, was his most scrutinized — a nine-month romance dissected daily by tabloids.

Davidson has handled the circus with surprising grace — joking about it in stand-up, refusing to badmouth exes, and expressing genuine bewilderment at the fascination. His self-deprecation is the shock absorber: he’s in on the joke, which makes the joke kinder.

Family Today: Mom and Sister

Davidson remains extremely close to his mother, Amy Davidson, a school nurse who raised Pete and his younger sister Casey as a widow on Staten Island. He bought a house with his mom early in his fame — a fact he’s joked about endlessly (“I live with my mom” became a punchline and a point of pride) — and Casey, a nurse like their mother, stays largely out of the spotlight.

The Davidsons are a tight, working-class Staten Island family that fame didn’t scatter. Amy appears in his comedy as both punchline and hero — the woman who held everything together after 9/11 and raised the most famous class clown of his generation.

Casey, his sister, has occasionally appeared in his comedy as the family’s grounding force — the nurse who kept everyone healthy while her brother became famous for being a mess. The Davidsons’ closeness is the quiet constant in his chaotic public narrative.

What He’s Doing Now

Post-SNL, Davidson has focused on film and stand-up: leading roles in comedies and dramas, his own Peacock series Bupkis (a fictionalized take on his life), and touring stand-up where the material keeps getting darker and funnier. He’s also been removing his famous tattoos — dozens of them — a years-long laser process he’s described as burning off his twenties.

At 32, he’s in the classic comedian’s transition: the wild-child material aging into something more reflective, the tabloid era (mostly) behind him, and a career that no longer needs SNL as a home base. The kid from Staten Island grew up — in public, messily, and on his own terms.

“The King of Staten Island”

Davidson’s most personal work is The King of Staten Island, the semi-autobiographical film directed by Judd Apatow. Davidson plays a fictionalized version of himself — a directionless 24-year-old living with his mom, grieving a firefighter father — and the film is his origin story told straight: the jokes, the pain, the borough.

Critics praised its honesty — it’s the rare star vehicle that doesn’t flatter its star. Davidson is needy, stuck, and funny in it, and the film’s emotional climax lands because it’s clearly true: a son working through a father’s death in real time, on camera.

The movie also served as his acting breakout, proving he could carry dramatic weight — the class clown revealing the sad kid underneath, which had been the act all along.

“Bupkis” and the Acting Career

Davidson’s Peacock series Bupkis — a fictionalized, R-rated take on his life — let him go bigger: surreal cameos, showbiz satire, and a willingness to torch his own image. The show’s best moments are its most unhinged, with Davidson playing a version of himself who’s even more of a disaster than the real one.

Around it, he’s built a steady film career: comedies where he’s the lovable screwup, dramas where he surprises. Directors keep casting him because he brings something un-fakeable — the sense of a person who’s actually lived through things, not just read about them.

At 32, the acting career is arguably outpacing the stand-up — the SNL kid becoming a genuine screen presence.

The Great Tattoo Removal

Davidson’s arms were once a canvas of dozens of tattoos — a visual diary of his twenties, inked impulsively and worn proudly. Then he started removing them: a years-long, painful laser process he’s described as “burning off” his past.

The removals are partly practical (clean skin gets more acting roles) and partly symbolic — a man editing his own history. He’s joked about the cost and the pain in stand-up, turning even laser surgery into material.

What’s left is the metaphor his whole career has been building: the kid who wore everything on his sleeve, learning to keep some things to himself.

The SNL Years

Davidson’s SNL tenure — eight seasons, the youngest cast member of his era — was the making of him: the Staten Island kid with the tattoos and the trauma, turning stand-up’s confessional mode into sketch comedy’s most vulnerable presence. The Weekend Update desk — his natural habitat — made him a star: the jokes about his father, his mental health, his life — comedy as autobiography.

The tabloid years — the engagements, the breakups, the BDE discourse — threatened to eclipse the work: the comedian as celebrity boyfriend, the punchline as person. Davidson’s response — the self-deprecation, the King of Staten Island semi-autobiography — reclaimed the narrative: the artist, not the anecdote.

The film — Judd Apatow’s love letter to Pete’s actual life — was the thesis: the father lost on 9/11, the Staten Island roots, the comedy as survival. The SNL years made him famous; the years since — the acting, the producing, the growing up in public — are making him something rarer: the former tabloid fixture as working actor. The tattoos remain; the punchline’s grown teeth.

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