“What is it about Pete Davidson?” muses a friend in the group chat, which, like female group chats all over the world, has once more been whipped to frenzied debate about exactly why Pete Davidson is so alluring to women. This week the Saturday Night Live star broke the internet during an Instagram live, along with long-time bestie and licker of Meghan Fox’s face, Machine Gun Kelly. The pair pranced around in dorky Calvin Kleins in what we’re supposed to believe was a ‘parody’ ad for the brand and people – as they so often do whenever Davidson does anything – melted. The star’s ability to attract more women than a 60 per cent off sale at Sephora has come to overshadow even his notable comedic talent and acting chops, particularly since he joined the Kardashian PR machine, stepping out with Kim to confirm their relationship last month.“It has to be a sex thing, right? I mean, to have every woman know that about your penis,” my friend Amy continues, “it’s gotta pique some interest.”She’s talking about his ex, Ariana Grande’s claims a few years ago that the 28-year-old was “super-sized” in the trouser department, a declaration that is now impossible to extricate from Davidson’s unquestionable Big D*ck Energy (BDE). But which came first? Is the comedian’s BDE due to his reputation, or is the reputation there on account of … well, it being true? It’s a real chicken and eggplant situation. Pete Davidson’s list of famous exes – ranging in age from 20 to nearly 50 – reads like a People Hottest Woman Alive list. In addition to Ariana Grande, he’s been linked to Kate Beckinsale, Cindy Crawford’s daughter Kaia Gerber, Maid star Margaret Qualley, fellow comedian Cazzie David and of course, most recently, the former Mrs Kardashian-West.Nadia, another group chat member, muses that it’s precisely the quality of the women he has dated that attracts so many to him in the first place.“It reminds me of the episode of Seinfeld where George carries a photo of a model in his wallet and tells everyone she was his fiancé but she died,” said one of my friends. “So other models look at him differently. “They suddenly find him attractive because another good looking woman once did. He actually gets himself into this secret underground model club.”This feels a little closer to the truth. Like a Hervé Léger bandage dress circa 2010, Davidson has become a status symbol for the world’s most desirable women.“He’s a sweet, funny, wounded f**kboi, pure and simple,” interjects Priya – the cynical, straight-talker of the group. “That’s what makes him so sexy – the danger of knowing you’re going to be f***ed over in the end but he means well so you can never truly hate him for it.“You KNOW we’ve all dated a version of him.”The ‘wounded’ element is certainly part of the appeal, perhaps not least because Davidson appears to be one of the few famous men willing to address his mental health issues off the bat, rather than in a damage-control mea culpa after some PR disaster requires it of him. Open about the grief of losing his father in the 9/11 attacks as a child and the realities of living with Borderline Personality Disorder, Pete Davidson is outspoken in his support for talking more openly about mental health. In a somewhat bizarre coincidence, he made headlines a few years back going in to bat for Kanye West after the rapper acknowledged his own psychological struggle. Maybe, though, it’s more simple. Perhaps Pete Davidson’s power lies in a crucial but oft-overlooked quality that is increasingly rare in the celebrity world. What if he is actually just a really, genuinely good guy?“He stays friends with all his exes,” reports another girlfriend. “I think he would really be very full of praise for the women he’s with.”This much, according at least to Davidson himself, is true. He told Paper magazine in 2019, “My love language, when I’m in a relationship, is I treat the person I’m with like a princess.”Could it be that simple? That the nice-to-his-mum, Staten Island native just knows how to treat a woman right? “I feel like maybe he is the perfect boyfriend for our every-day-is-the-end-of-times times,” my friend concludes, “not a jerk. Nice to you. Mediocre in just about every way. Safe.”The exact alchemy that makes Pete Davidson so attractive to women – my entire group chat included – is impossible to pin down. Like a walking, tattooed ink-blot test, perhaps it’s not so much about what Davidson brings to the party, but what he allows us to see in him – and what, in turn, it reveals about our desires. “Look,” Priya sums up, when I present my theory, “I think the one thing we can all agree on, is that if he appeared in front of us right now, we’d all have our pants off in THREE SECONDS. Even if we couldn’t quite put our fingers on why.”Bek Day is a freelance writer and Pete Davidson fan.
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