Pete Davidson Asked Lorne Michaels to Fire Him From ‘Saturday Night Live’

Pete Davidson knows he was acting like a child when he asked Lorne Michaels to fire him from Saturday Night Live. But if you hear his reasoning, it kinda feels understandable and maybe even a teensy bit relatable — particularly when you consider the fact that Davidson was freshly 21 years old when he joined the cast.

In an interview featured in Peacock’s new docu-series (via Deadline) SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night, the actor-comedian revealed that he insisted on a meeting with Michaels to ask to be cut from the team after his first season. Mostly because he thought nobody in the cast and crew liked him.

“After my first year, I actually called for a meeting with Lorne, and I was like, ‘Please fire me,'” Davidson recollected in the series. “And he was like, ‘Why?'” To which Davidson says he replied, “‘I don’t belong here. Everybody here’s so talented, and they don’t want to be my friend.'” Which is an extremely 21-year-old response to his work colleagues possibly-maybe not liking him.

Thankfully for him, Michaels was a bit more understanding about the nerves Davidson was displaying during the meeting where he almost got himself fired. “He said, ‘You don’t figure it out until your third or fourth year,” the actor recalled. “It’s just gonna suck for three or four years’ and I was like, ‘All right,’ and he was right.”

Pete Davidson’s Comedy Career Is Only Just Beginning To Blossom

Though Davidson may have wondered “how the f**k did I get this show?” after watching his audition tape during the first episode of the docu-series — adding that “it’s wild to see the hope in one’s eye” — his recent work shows his growth and evolution are ongoing. Particularly after becoming a bit of a tabloid magnet for his dating life.

Davidson joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 2014 (the series’ 40th season) as one of the youngest cast members to ever be hired in its history. He left the longstanding sketch series in May 2022, after eight seasons. Though it should be noted that he occasionally returns to Studio 8H in Rockefeller Center to appear from time to time — most notably whenever former SNL scribe (and famous comedian in his own right) John Mulaney appears as a host. The actor also recently got into the fashion world, and mentioned in an interview with W Magazine that he’s purposefully “laying low” for a while, and it’s been a boon for his mental and physical health.

As he put it:

I’m very happy where I am right now, mentally. I just want to be known for doing good work. I want to be out there only when it’s movie, stand-up, charity, or business ventures. That’s when I want to be seen. I don’t want to be this f**king loser who just dates people. That’s not who I am. But people hate celebrities now. The media takes a handful of celebs every couple of years, and they just destroy them. For some reason, I’m one of the people they chose to go after. It’s actually, in a way, a blessing, because it allowed me to take a step back and evaluate things. What do you want to be? Who are you? I’m someone who is from Staten Island, wanted to do stand-up, and if I got to do anything else because of stand-up, it was a miracle.

Since appearing on SNL, the stand-up comedian has gone on to co-write and star in the semi-autobiographical comedy-drama feature, The King of Staten Island (2020), as well as the similarly semi-autobiographical Peacock series, 2023’s Bupkis. Though the latter project received mixed reviews, the show was picked up for a second season, only for Davidson to decide not to go through with it (at least for now). Instead, he’s continued to star and cameo in various film projects, including The Suicide Squad, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, as well as the forthcoming Dog Man movie. He also put out his third comedy special, Pete Davidson: Turbo Fonzarelli, in 2024.

SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night

Release Date

January 16, 2025

Number of Episodes

4

Franchise

Saturday Night Live