Laughing it off! Pete Davidson put a playful spin on his feud with Kanye West while performing at the Netflix Is a Joke festival — and he threw a little shade in the process.
Davidson, 28, took the stage at the Los Angeles event on Friday, April 29. In a clip released by the streaming platform one week later, the Saturday Night Live star began by asking the audience about their years.
“I’ve had a really weird year,” he quipped. “I had an AIDS scare this year. Yeah, I did. And you’re like, ‘Pete, wow. What’s going on in your life? Are you sharing needles, doing heroin? Are you having tons of unprotected sex?’ No, Kanye told me I had AIDS. And he’s a genius, so I was like, ‘Oh, f–k.'”
The King of Staten Island star was seemingly referring to a TMZ report from January that alleged that West, 44, was spreading rumors about Davidson’s health amid his romance with Kim Kardashian. At the time, a rep for the Yeezy designer denied the “nonsense” story.
Davidson, however, joked that he took the claims to heart. “I was like, ‘I better call my doctor. The guy who made College Dropout thinks I have AIDS,'” the comedian continued. “So … I actually got checked, ’cause I was like, ‘Maybe he’s right, I don’t know.’ My doctor told me I don’t have AIDS, I just look like I have AIDS. It’s a completely different thing.”
The Guy Code alum went on to explain why he found West’s allegations “so funny,” telling the crowd, “AIDS is just such an old school thing. … It’s like such a ’90s, early 2000s thing to [say]. John Mulaney called me, he was like, ‘AIDS? You should spread a rumor that he has polio.'”
West has been at odds with Davidson since the Meet Cute star began dating Kardashian, 41, last fall. Earlier this year, the Grammy winner shared a string of Instagram posts dissing the New York native and declaring he wanted to get Kardashian back after she filed for divorce in February 2021. The drama grew more serious after West dropped the video for his song “Eazy,” which showed an animated version of the comedian being kidnapped and physically harmed.
“Does anybody else secretly hope that, like, Kanye pulls a Mrs. Doubtfire?” the Set It Up actor said on stage. “Like, [they] come home one day and they’re like, ‘This is the new housekeeper,’ and he’s like, ‘What’s up, fam?'”
As the audience burst into laughter, Davidson confessed that his feud with West has been “a really weird thing to go through” in public. “People are trying to give you advice, but even friends that are older, they’re like, ‘I don’t know,'” he said. “They’re like, ‘He looks pretty mad, bro. Good luck. Sorry. Here if you need.’ But, like, no advice. … People ask me weird questions, that’s the only thing I don’t like.”
Despite the drama, Kardashian and Davidson’s romance has been going strong. The couple made their red carpet debut at the White House Correspondents Dinner before attending the Met Gala together on Monday, May 2.
“I think that, you know, sometimes things happen when you just least expect it. It was the last thing that I was really planning on,” the reality star gushed of her relationship on the “Making Space” podcast last month. “I definitely took my time. … When it did happen, we were kind of, like, ‘Oh, my God, I wasn’t planning on this. And this isn’t even what I was thinking of,’ and it just makes it that much sweeter and so much more fun.”
