Breaking up is hard enough, but having your breakup become source material for the country’s No. 1 song is only a feeling Pete Davidson can relate to.
The “Saturday Night Live” star is opening up about his initial reaction to ex-girlfriend Ariana Grande’s empowerment anthem “thank u, next,” mining his own personal struggles for laughs in a recent stand-up set.
The comedian addressed his tumultuous split with the pop star during a performance in Boston on Monday night, calling Grande’s release of the track a “sad day.”
“That shit came out before I had to put on a fucking duck hat and be like, ‘derrrp here’s the pizza!’ So all my friends were there. It was a sad day. We didn’t know it was going to happen,” he told the crowd, according to E! News.
“Here’s the thing about the breakup song. Usually breakup songs you know who it’s about but you don’t really know. That G named all of us,” he added. “Bam. She named all of us. And then, tells us, yeah, he has a big dick.”
Grande has told a different story about the release of “thank u, next.” The singer said she sent the track to each of the ex-boyfriends mentioned in the song, including Big Sean, Ricky Alvarez and Davidson, before sharing it with the world, explaining that she “wasn’t going to blindside anybody.”
Davidson said he expected the lyrics addressing their breakup to be harder to swallow. Grande has only nice things to say about Davidson on the bop, singing about how “thankful” she is for the comedian before launching into the song’s earworm of a chorus.
“This won’t be easy, this is rough,” Davidson said, describing how he listened to the song for the first time. “So I start playing it. And we’re all like, ‘Ehhh … it’s ok.’ We’re like ‘Okay, it’s not that bad for you.’”
It’s not so much Grande’s words on the track, but the cultural phenomenon surrounding “thank u, next.” The song and its music video broke records and became the breakup anthem of the year.
Davidson said his mom, a school nurse, even felt the “thank u, next” effect, taunted by students.
“She was walking in the hallway and some little fucking kid started singing ‘Thank U Next’ to her,” Davidson said. “Me, I get it, but my mom?”
As punishment, the school pop perpetrators had to sing the song again in front of the dean, a former cop, and other administrators, Davidson said.
If you’re like Davidson and have heard enough of Grande’s much-publicized relationship trials as of late, rest assured: The pop star has no designs on new romances in the new year.
In response to a tweet inquiring “Who Is Ariana Dating NOW?!” Grande vowed to stay single for the foreseeable future.
“Spoiler: for the rest of this year/probably my life: It’s no one,” she wrote back on Twitter. “Please refer back to this tweet for future questions.”