Pete Davidson opened up about his eight seasons on Saturday Night Live, and why his sudden fame annoyed some of his veteran cast members.
In an interview on The Breakfast Club, the comedian looked back at his sudden rise to fame after joining the NBC sketch comedy series at age 20, with just a few years of stand-up under his belt.
“You got to remember, everyone there did Second City, improv, worked so hard,” Davidson said on the radio show. “I’m not saying I didn’t work hard, but I was only doing comedy for three, four years.”
“Everyone at SNL was 10, 15 years older than me, and I had a tough time,” he added. “They weren’t mean or anything. It’s just hard to, you know, relate.”
Davidson noted that when he joined SNL in 2014, he “unintentionally” made the show more of a “tabloid-y” thing as stories about his high-profile personal life were splashed online.
“So, I think I did rub people the wrong way, and I think it was just annoying for the cast,” he said. “I think the show as a whole loved it because they were like, people are talking about SNL. Not that they weren’t [before],” he quickly added.
Pete Davidson Talked About His ‘SNL’ Paycheck
In the interview, Davidson, who left the show in 2022, revealed that SNL cast members don’t make a lot of money when they first start, despite their hard work.
“And a lot of what people liked about me was, ‘Oh, this was a kid from Staten Island that’s just talking s—‘,” he said. “You got to remember all of these people are 10, 15 years older than me working so hard. SNL don’t pay great until you’re like five, six years in. At the time, you weren’t allowed to do stuff outside of the show that was a payday. You gotta dress up to go to the afterparty and all this s—.”
In a 2024 video for New York magazine, Davidson was asked about his first big splurge from his first SNL paycheck—and it wasn’t much. “Do you guys know what they pay us?” he cracked. “It’s like three grand an episode. I think I got dinner.”
SNL veteran Kenan Thompson, who has been a cast member since 2003, didn’t dispute Davidson’s salary claim. “It’s pretty notorious that it’s more so about having the job than getting paid for the job,” he told Variety last year. “You gotta pay your dues a little bit, yeah.”
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