Comedian Pete Davidson has opened up about the heartbreaking moment he learned his father has died while talking about his mental health and his ongoing therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder.
In a new interview with Jon Bernthal’s Real Ones podcast, the 29-year-old comedian discussed the death of his father, Scott Matthew Davidson, a firefighter who was killed during the September 11, 2001 attacks at the World Trade Center.
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Davidson was seven when Scott died and he did not find out his father had died until days later.
“The sentence that my therapist and I have agreed on is, like, my dad told me he was going to pick me up from school on 9/11,” Davidson said of the PTSD stemming from his childhood.
“I got picked up by my mom, she didn’t tell me what was going on for, like, three days,” he said.
Davidson said that his mother, Amy Waters Davidson, had assured him that his father was still at work and would be coming home.
The actor said he had no idea and recalled how his mother had told him he was grounded and not allowed to watch the television.
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“And I was like: ‘What? Like, I didn’t do anything,’” Davidson said about his confusion.
“And then one night I turned on the TV and I just saw my dad on TV, and they’re like: ‘These are all the firemen that are dead,’” he added.
Davidson said he didn’t know how to speak to his mother about it. In addition, for weeks after the terrorist attacks, there remained hope of finding more survivors in the rubble.
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“We didn’t know he was dead for, like, three weeks,” he said.
While reflecting on the days after his father’s death, Davidson appreciated his mom, who was 30 years old at the time, for how she had handled the situation, before acknowledging the incident the experience had on him as both a child and an adult.
In addition to PTSD, Davidson says he also has a borderline personality disorder and a “fear of abandonment”. The 29-year-old said he trying to learn how to believe people.
Davidson has also referenced his dad’s death in his performances before, He also addressed the criticism he faced over the jokes. The 29-year-old said that he tells the jokes as they are a way of keeping his father’s memories alive.
