Pete Davidson opens up about his ‘humiliating’ Dave Chappelle tattoo

Pete Davidson revealed a secret about one of his now-removed tattoos.

On the July 28 episode of “Hot Ones,” the comedian shared the story behind some large ink he got on his chest — a quote directly from Dave Chappelle — during the early days of his career.

“I’ve never admitted this because it’s so humiliating,” Davidson, 31, opened up to host Sean Evans. “But when I was like 20 at a comedy club, it might have been the Knitting Factory when Hannibal Buress used to run it, I did a set. I was like 19 or 20.”

Chappelle, 51, was in the audience, which was a surreal moment for Davidson.

“So seeing him was crazy,” the “Saturday Night Live” alum said. “He was like, ‘I watched your whole set. It was really good.’”

As the two were chatting after the show, Davidson asked Chappelle for some advice. “How do you keep coming up with new stuff? I’m working on new stuff. It’s difficult.”

The comedic icon replied, “Jokes come and go, but swag is forever.”

The quote clearly struck a chord with Davidson, as he decided to permanently put it on his body. But because he didn’t include Chappelle’s name, many assumed he came up with the phrase.

“You know, I could have just told people he said that to me,” Davidson told Evans. “I didn’t put ‘dash Chappelle.’”

But he was later so embarrassed by the ink, he ended up covering it up with a large image of the shark from “Jaws.”

While the Staten Island native may have chosen the Chapelle ink as his most embarrassing design, he clearly has lots of regrets about his body-covering ink collection; in recent years, the “SNL” alum has slowly but surely been removing over 200 tattoos.

Some notable tats include numerous tributes to former loves Ariana Grande and Kim Kardashian, a portrait of Hillary Clinton and more.

He started the process in 2020 and revealed that the entire painful process will take another 10 years to complete — and that he only plans to keep a couple of his designs.