Pete Davidson Reveals The "Humiliating" Chest Tattoo He Regrets
He got it covered very quickly.
Before he began his years-long tattoo removal process, Pete Davison was covered in around 200 pieces of body art. Naturally, some of that ink carries regret for the comedian, especially a particularly large quote he had emblazoned on his chest in his early 20s. Even prior to lasering all of his ink off, Davidson had this tat covered pretty quickly. And now, he’s telling the story of his wildest tattoo.
Davidson revealed that when he was “19 or 20,” he ran into Dave Chappelle at a comedy club, and the exchange meant so much to him that he got part of the conversation tattooed in a large font on his left pec. “I’ve never admitted this because it’s so humiliating,” Davidson said during his July 28 appearance on Hot Ones. “I got off stage, and [Chappelle] was like, ‘I watched your whole set, it was really good.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, thanks. How do you keep coming up with new stuff? I’m working on new stuff and it’s difficult.’ And he goes, ‘Jokes come and go, but swag is forever.’ And guess who got that tattooed on his chest?”
Davidson went on to say he covered the quote soon afterwards with a large shark, realizing it was “so dumb” to get such a large quote inked on his body. “I covered it with Jaws, because I needed something huge to black it out, so I just put a giant shark over it,” Davidson said. “That’s pretty bad, dude! But he was like my idol, he still is. But that’s so dumb. I could have just told people he said that to me. Also when you see that, you think I thought of it. I didn’t put ‘— Chappelle.’ Also, I could’ve got it like this big, but it was my whole chest. Horrible!”
When Davidson became a well-known public figure, the Chappelle quote was already covered, and the large shark tattoo covering it could be seen over his heart.
However, both that piece of comedic wisdom and the sea creature who enveloped it are now washed away. Davidson showed off his ink-free body in a February 2025 update on his tattoo removal journey, which revealed his left pec no longer has the shark on it.
