Pete Davidson has nothing but respect for his former fiancée, Ariana Grande, amid her public break from the spotlight.
“I don’t like it at all. It’s not cool,” Davidson, 32, told Variety in a profile published Wednesday, September 30, referring to ongoing criticism of Grande, 33. “She’s a really strong person — I’ve witnessed it — and I don’t understand it.”
News broke in August that Grande planned to take a step back from the limelight after the conclusion of her Eternal Sunshine Tour over rampant commentary about her physical appearance. (The Oscar nominee has stressed that she made her decision “a long time ago” from a “thoughtful and empowered place,” squashing speculation that it was due to the public scrutiny over her body following the release of her “Petal” music video.)
“She knows how to handle this stuff though. She’s been around,” Davidson told Variety. “So she’ll be OK, but I think it’s f***ed up.”
Davidson and Grande were together for four months in 2018. After calling off their engagement, the pop star name-dropped the comedian in her breakup anthem “Thank U, Next.”
“There should be a group for us,” he quipped to the outlet about other celebrities who’ve inspired major musical hits. “It’s something that comes up once in a while, but I think Ariana’s f***in’ cool and immensely talented and an awesome girl. We’re not texting or whatever, but we’re cool.”
After her broken engagement to Davidson, Grande married Dalton Gomez in 2021 before their separation two years later in 2023. The exes finalized their divorce in March 2024. She briefly moved on with her Wicked costar Ethan Slater before reconciling with ex Ricky Alvarez earlier this year.
As for Davidson, his equally star-studded dating history has been the subject of intense media attention.
“It’s been over a decade. My work and my relevance is super overlooked, and it’s confusing to me,” he lamented to Variety. “I’m still only 32, but I have really crazy credits: nearly a decade at SNL; I hosted a year after I left; I worked with [Craig] Gillespie and [James] Gunn and [Doug] Liman and [David] Leitch and Judd [Apatow] and Edie [Falco] and [Joe] Pesci.”
Davidson most recently dated model Elsie Hewitt, welcoming daughter Scottie in December 2025, months before calling it quits.
“Scottie is my whole life,” he gushed in Wednesday’s profile. “I was living or dying on this business and what I thought people thought of me. It was all validation and ‘If I do this, then I’ll do that.’ But as soon as I saw her for the first time, I was like, ‘Oh my God, none of this f***in’ matters at all. It’s a job. If I get to do cool stuff, great; if not, cool, I get to be home more with my kid.’”
