Pete Davidson is going through a tattoo removal transformation, but one piece of ink is here to stay forever.
“Hillary [Clinton] is staying. I love that Hillary,” Davidson, 31, said of the tattoo of the former U.S. Secretary of State, 77, that resides on his leg during his Wednesday, August 13, appearance on The Breakfast Club radio show.
Davidson then explained why he decided to get a portrait of Clinton tattooed on his body.
“I got Hillary after she lost [the 2016 presidential election], one — I know her personally and she’s a lovely lady, but also just, like, she’s tough man,” he continued. “She was really at the forefront of some bulls**t, and as someone who has been at the forefront of some bulls**t, I just wanted to cheer her up a little bit.”
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As for how Clinton reacted to the tattoo, Davidson said, “She loves it.”
The Saturday Night Live alum, who once had around 200 tattoos on his body before he began the process of having them removed in 2020, even said Clinton was worried that Davidson would have her portrait lasered off.
“What was cute is when I got them removed, she hit me up and she’s like, ‘You’re not removing me are you?’ I said, ‘Of course not. Hillary stays,’” Davidson added.
Davidson first debuted his Clinton tattoo via Instagram in 2017.
“Wanted to get @hillaryclinton a Christmas gift so I got a tattoo of my hero,” he captioned a since-deleted photo of the ink. “Thanks for being such a badass and one of the strongest people in the universe.”
Clinton had a hilarious response to the tattoo, commenting on the post, “Thanks, @petedavidson, This makes it significantly less awkward that I’ve had a Pete Davidson tattoo for years. But seriously, I’m honored. Merry Christmas my friend.”
Months later, Davidson explained to Variety that he got the tattoo of Clinton “because she’s such a cool person.”
The pair also ran into each other outside of 30 Rockefeller Plaza in 2019 and snapped a photo together, which Davidson shared via Instagram with the caption, “That’s bae for life.”
While Davidson’s tattoo of his unlikely pal isn’t going anywhere, as well as a tattoo of the Wu-Tang Clan symbol, the same can’t be said for dozens of others on his body. Davidson explained why he decided to have most of his ink removed during his radio show appearance.
“My tattoos sucked. They were all drug-fueled — I got all of my tattoos over the span of two years, and I was just looking at myself in the mirror once in rehab for the first time when I was sober, and I was like, ‘Oh no, what did I do?’” he said. “I think tattoos are cool, I realize most people’s tattoos are meaningful and mine just weren’t. So I started burning them off — burning them off sucks. I’ll be removing them until I’m like 40.”
Davidson has opened up about his tattoo removal journey several times in recent years, admitting in April that he’s spent around $200,000 on the process so far — and he’s only about 30 percent finished.
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“It’s a pretty uncomfortable amount of money to disclose, but I think one of the tabloids already leaked it,” he told Variety. “So, like, it’s gonna suck. Now that I’ve said [the tattoo remover’s] name, though, he’s a little nicer, for sure.”
Davidson also said he has to make sure to plan recovery time after each tattoo.
“Well, I have to plan it in between work because it’s a six-week healing process each time you get one removed,” he said. “So each tattoo is 10 to 12 sessions. That’s 60 weeks of your life right there on just one tattoo to remove.”
Davidson continued, “So it’s pretty horrible. It’s like putting your arm on a grill and burning off a layer, and then you gotta do maintenance and let it heal properly. And it’s pretty tough. It sucks, I’m not gonna lie.”