STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Pete Davidson was back in his garage for episode two of “The Pete Davidson Show.”
Joined by guest Charlamagne Tha God, the Staten Island native spent the 36-minute podcast episode bouncing between early-career memories, therapy talk and the exhausting nature of internet culture.
Much of the episode was rooted in their early MTV days, when a teenage Davidson was a regular face on MTV shows “Guy Code,” “Wild ‘n Out” and “Failosophy.” Charlamagne spoke about being struck by Davidson’s emotional intelligence at such a young age, noting that Davidson didn’t “act like a 16-year-old.”
Davidson then credited Charlamagne for treating him like “another dude” rather than a kid, and for saving him from blowing thousands on a real gold chain when a dipped Cuban link would do just fine.
“For some reason, at that time in my life, I thought it was like, you are not a man unless you have a real Cuban link,” Davidson said.
The two then reminisced about the mid-2010s, which Davidson called the sweet spot: “around the time ‘Views’ came out, the Drake album.”
“That was before everybody started getting angry at everybody on the internet,” Davidson said.
The conversation turned more serious as Charlamagne credited Davidson for being one of the first comedians he remembered openly talking about therapy.
Davidson explained that the honesty came from fear that without context, people would just think he was “f—— nuts.”
“If you didn’t know that about me or if I wasn’t like, ‘Hey, I struggle with this, just so you know,’ you’d be like, ‘Whoa, Pete’s f—— nuts’ or ‘he’s weird,’” Davidson said. “But if you know I’m going through that, I was like, oh they’d be like, ‘Well, he’s probably, you know, dealing with that.’”
Charlamagne shared his own journey through therapy and an ayahuasca experience that forced him to confront truths he had been avoiding.
“Stop lying to yourself and stop volunteering those lies to other people,” he recalled realizing.
Davidson then related it back to his own experiences with therapy and learning to not take responsibility for everyone else’s emotions.
“Everyone has their own s— going on, which is another thing that you have to learn when you’re cohabitating with someone. They’re not always pissed at you. Most of the time, it is not you,” Davidson said. “People could have their own experience and be sad and going through something, and it’s not my f—— job to make you laugh and get you out of it.”
Charlamagne and Davidson then dug into the exhausting reality of online criticism, with Davidson admitting he ditched Instagram because “Anytime I would look at it, I would feel awful after,” and while he’s never downloaded TikTok, it gives him “so much anxiety.”
Despite the constant noise and trolling that comes with being well-known public figures, both agreed that nothing hurts more than indifference.
“You know the worst thing people can be saying about you? Nothing,” Charlamagne said. “If they don’t say anything, that’s when you’re done … When your latest standup came out, nobody had the reaction, nobody cared.”
“Oh, that would kill me,” Davidson said. “I’d rather everyone say it’s terrible.”
The conversation then drifted into aliens, AI and Davidson’s dream of the internet simply disappearing one day.
“We just need one nerd to shut off whatever that switch is — that’s how stupid I am. I think there’s like a switch somewhere and then like all apps die,” Davidson said. “Think about everyone’s whole existence. Like, once this is gone, the amount of people that are like, ‘Well, what do I do now?’”
To close out the episode, Charlamagne left Davidson with one piece of parenting advice.
“Patience, man,” Charlamagne said. “Patience with them, but most importantly, patience with yourself because you’re not gonna always get it right.”
“The Pete Davidson Show” streams every Friday on Netflix, with future guests including Rosebud Baker, Fetty Wap, Dan Soder and more.