Pete Davidson didn’t know ‘SNL’ was still on before he auditioned

Pete Davidson didn’t realize “Saturday Night Live” was still airing when he auditioned for the popular sketch show more than 10 years ago.

During an appearance on “The Breakfast Club” radio show earlier this week, the 31-year-old comedian opened up about his experience joining “SNL” back in 2014.

“I was so lucky,” he said Wednesday. “I was so young. I was super naive. So I just was like, I’m just going to smoke weed and talk about, you know, what’s going on in my life.”

However, the “King of Staten Island” star did not regularly watch the Lorne Michaels-created show, which made it difficult for him to answer questions about his favorite sketches and cast members.

“I was like, ‘I like the Californians or whatever,’” Davidson, who rushed to the bathroom to look at older “SNL” clips on YouTube at the time, said. “But I had no idea what I was talking about.”

The “Bodies Bodies Bodies” actor also admitted that it was hard for him to connect with his fellow cast members, particularly because of the significant age gap between him and “SNL” stalwarts like Colin Jost, 43, Michael Che, 42, and Kate McKinnon, 41.

“Not saying I didn’t work hard, but I was only doing comedy, like, three, four years,” Davidson, who revealed in July that he’s expecting his first child with girlfriend Elsie Hewitt, explained. “And a lot of what people liked about me was like, ‘Oh, this is, like, a kid from Staten Island that’s just talking s–t.’”

“So you got to remember all of these people are 10, 15 years older than me working so hard,” he added.

Although Davidson ultimately departed “SNL” in 2022 after eight seasons, he returned for the show’s 50th anniversary special back in February.

He opened up about the “terrible” event during an appearance on “Late Night With Seth Meyers” earlier this week.

“It’s a terrible audience,” Davidson said. “It’s just famous people, and famous people only like themselves.”

But not all of the star-studded guests at the 50th anniversary special were that bad, according to the “Meet Cute” comedian, because Meryl Streep was also in the audience.

“Meryl rules,” Davidson said of the 76-year-old Oscar winner. “I get to my seat and I just look and I’m like, ‘This can’t be right.’ And it was Meryl Streep and I just sat down and I was like, ‘I’m so sorry that I’m sitting next to you. You’re the best.’ And she was very nice.”

But despite Davidson’s remark that the crowd at the anniversary special was “terrible,” he admitted that it provided him with some newfound respect for the comedy “institution” that “SNL” is.

“This is like, you know, the Harvard of comedy,” he concluded.