Culture

Pete Davidson apologizes for making Rep. Dan Crenshaw 'famous'


“Saturday Night Live” cast member Pete Davidson addressed his famous dust-up with Rep. Dan Crenshaw during his new Netflix special, “Alive from New York,” saying he regrets making the Texas Republican a “household name for no reason.”

Mr. Davidson dedicated nearly eight minutes of his 49-minute stand-up comedy special, which debuted Tuesday, to addressing the 2018 controversy in which he was heavily criticized for mocking Mr. Crenshaw’s eye patch.

Mr. Davidson said 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.”

Mr. Davidson sparked a backlash in November 2018 after he joked about the patch worn by Mr. Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL who lost an eye in Afghanistan.



“You may be surprised to hear he’s a congressional candidate for Texas and not a hit man in a porno movie,” Mr. Davidson said at the time during “SNL’s” “Weekend Update” segment. “I’m sorry. I know he lost his eye in war — or whatever.”

In his special, Mr. Dadvidson explained that he didn’t know the story behind the eye patch until seconds before taking the stage, and that the “whatever” line was improvised in an effort to be “mindful” of the nature of the injury.

“People were like, ‘You hate America!’ And I’m like, ‘No, I just didn’t want to be incorrect about how he lost his f–ing eye,’” Mr. Davidson said. “Is that a f–ing crime?’”

In 2018, Mr. Davidson 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 spectrum.

But in “Alive from New York,” Mr. Davidson lamented that the controversy made Mr. Crenshaw “famous.”

“The only thing I did do, which I am guilty of and I apologize for, is I did make that guy famous and a household name for no reason, right?” he said.

“I did what, like, Ariana Grande did for me,” he joked, referencing his pop star ex-girlfriend.

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