Rep. Dan Crenshaw responded Friday morning after “Saturday Night Live” cast member Pete Davidson claimed during his new Netflix stand-up special that he made the Texas Republican a “household name for no reason.”
Mr. Davidson irked conservatives this week after he basically retracted his 2018 apology to Mr. Crenshaw for mocking his eye patch, which the former Navy SEAL wears because he lost an eye in Afghanistan.
Mr. Crenshaw told Fox News that he prefers to remember the Mr. Davidson he met in New York in 2018 and not the one who now claims he made the Republican “famous.”
“I can’t get out of Pete Davidson’s head,” Mr. Crenshaw said. “It’s a little sad.”
During his new stand-up special, titled “Alive from New York,” Mr. Davidson dedicated nearly eight minutes of his 49-minute set to addressing the 2018 controversy, saying he was “forced to apologize” at the time even though he didn’t think he did anything wrong.
“It was, like, words that were twisted so that a guy could be famous,” he said of Mr. Crenshaw. “So, I made fun of this guy with an eye patch and then I kind of got forced to apologize because people were, like, threatening to shoot me in the face.”
The joke Mr. Davidson made on “SNL” in November 2018 said Mr. Crenshaw looked like a “hit man in a porno movie.”
“I’m sorry,” the comedian added at the time. “I know he lost his eye in war — or whatever. Whatever.”
Mr. Davidson later apologized for the joke on “SNL,” calling Mr. Crenshaw a “war hero” who deserved “all the respect in the world.” Mr. Crenshaw responded by accepting the apology and appearing on the show the following week, landing a few zingers of his own against Mr. Davidson. The come-together moment was widely praised by commentators on both sides of the political aisle.
Mr. Crenshaw even reached out to Mr. Davidson a month later after the comedian posted a disturbing message on Instagram that suggested he was contemplating suicide.
Now, Mr. Crenshaw said he’s disappointed that Mr. Davidson seemingly wants to ruin their moment.
“He’s been thinking about me a lot for the past year as he builds this comedy routine apparently,” the congressman said. “I’m not so sure his jokes always land but it is what it is. It’s like our comedic careers are joined at the hip because he can’t stop thinking about me.
“It’s a little sad,” he continued. “We had a really good moment at that time in 2018. America liked it. The left and the right liked it. So, we don’t really want to ruin that.”
Mr. Crenshaw recalled meeting Mr. Davidson during their “SNL” rehearsal and said the comedian, who lost his firefighter father in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, gifted him with a “Never Forget” lighter he had found on the street when he stepped out to buy cigarettes that night.
“He said this was kind of cool that this happened to come up while he was buying cigarettes,” the congressman said. “And I think he meant well at the time.”
“I’d like to remember the guy that I saw in person and hung out with that night,” he added.
