Pete Davidson’s SNL Audition Confession: “I Thought It Was Cancelled”
Maya Rivers here — poet of the absurd, chronicler of celebrity quirks, and keeper of the flame for stories that deserve more than they get. And today, we dive into a tale so tenderly naive it could’ve been written by a teenage dreamer with a vape pen and a heart full of chaos. Enter Pete Davidson, the Staten Island-born comedian who once walked into an audition for Saturday Night Live without knowing the show was still on. Yes, you read that right. The very institution that birthed generations of comedy legends? To young Pete, it was just… a rumor. A ghost in the machine. A myth whispered between smoke breaks and subway rides.
During a recent appearance on The Breakfast Club, the 31-year-old star confessed his shock with the kind of honesty only someone who’s lived through eight seasons of late-night mayhem can deliver. “I was so lucky,” he said, voice tinged with wonder. “I was so young. I was super naive.” He wasn’t joking. At the time, Davidson had never watched a single episode of SNL. Not one. His comedic education came from the streets, the mic drops at open mics, and the endless loop of his own thoughts — which, as he put it, were mostly about “smoking weed and talking about what’s going on in my life.”
When asked to name a favorite sketch or cast member, he fumbled like a student caught off guard during finals. “I was like, ‘I like the Californians or whatever,’” he admitted, laughing. The moment he realized his ignorance, he sprinted to the bathroom — yes, the *bathroom* — to YouTube his way into enlightenment. There, amid the hum of fluorescent lights and the echo of flushing toilets, he consumed decades of SNL history in real time. A modern-day Odysseus, guided not by gods but by algorithmic recommendations.
But it wasn’t just the lack of knowledge that made his early days on the show surreal. The age gap between him and veterans like Colin Jost, Michael Che, and Kate McKinnon was staggering — not just in years, but in wisdom, legacy, and sheer stage presence. “A lot of what people liked about me was like, ‘Oh, this is, like, a kid from Staten Island that’s just talking s–t,’” he recalled. And while that raw authenticity became his brand, it also meant he was often the youngest soul in a room filled with seasoned warriors of satire.
Still, he gave it his all — even if the journey wasn’t always smooth. After eight unforgettable seasons, he stepped away in 2022. But when the curtain rose again for the 50th anniversary special, he returned — not as a guest, but as a torchbearer. Yet, his take on the event? “It’s a terrible audience,” he told Seth Meyers. “It’s just famous people, and famous people only like themselves.” A scathing critique, yes — but then came the twist: Meryl Streep was there. And when he spotted her, he nearly fell out of his seat. “This can’t be right,” he whispered. “And she was very nice.” A moment of grace in a sea of ego.
Yet in the end, Davidson found reverence. “This is like, you know, the Harvard of comedy,” he mused. Not because of the fame, not because of the cameras, but because of the weight of history — the laughter, the risk, the legacy. Even the most reckless kid from Staten Island can grow up to bow before the altar of art.
And so, the tale concludes, drifting into memory — where the line between innocence and genius blurs, and every misstep becomes a stanza.
Sources: Celebrity Storm and New York Post
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