Dan Crenshaw Responds After SNL's Pete Davidson Rescinds Apology: 'It's a Little Sad'
Rep. Dan Crenshaw spoke Friday morning on “Fox & Friends” about comedian Pete Davidson’s recent decision to rescind a public apology regarding the mockery he made of the Texas Republican’s disability in a “Saturday Night Live” comedy sketch more than one year ago.
“Listen, I can’t get out of Pete Davidson’s head,” Crenshaw initially joked with Fox News host Brian Kilmeade. “He’s been thinking about me a lot for the past year as he builds his comedy routine, apparently.”
“It is what it is,” Crenshaw added, “It’s like our comedic careers are joined at the hip because he can’t stop thinking about me.”
It was not all humorous for Crenshaw, however, who went on to admit his disappointment in the rehashing of the controversial 2018 moment Davidson joked about his eye-patch — worn in light of an IED explosion suffered by the then-congressional candidate and former U.S. Navy Seal during a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
The ensuing apology, which involved the two coming together for an “SNL” on-air heart-to-heart and a series of jokes the following week, had been “a really good moment” of healing for the country and the culture, according to Crenshaw.
In fact, Crenshaw told Kilmeade, it had been a moment he would happily remember over Davidson’s recent remarks.
“It’s a little sad,” the Texas Republican said. “You know, we had a really good moment at that time in 2018. America liked it. The left and the right liked it. So, you know, we don’t really want to ruin that.”
“I’ll tell you what,” he added. “The Pete Davidson I remember, you know, he went out to buy some cigarettes while we were rehearsing and he came back because he had found this lighter that said ‘Never Forget’ on it and he gave that to me as a gesture.”
As Crenshaw had explained during his surprise “Saturday Night Live” appearance on the night of the apology, “Never Forget” is a phrase spoken to both victims of the tragic September 11th terrorist attacks and veterans. It is meant to indicate not only encouragement and support, but also reassurance that the American public will not soon forget the sacrifices made by its service-members.
The phrase was meaningful not only to Crenshaw but also to Davidson, whose father had died serving as a New York City firefighter on September 11th, according to the New York Post.
“There’s a lot of lessons to learn here,” Crenshaw told the live audience in November 2018. “Not only that the left and the right can still agree on some things, but also this: Americans can forgive one another.”
That forgiveness was never truly asked for in Davidson’s case, however — at least according to his latest Netflix stand-up comedy special “Alive from New York.”
Debuting Tuesday, the special received no shortage of media attention, involving tense jokes about Davidson’s ex-fiancée, popular music artist Ariana Grande, and being “forced to apologize” to Crenshaw.
“I remember exactly what I said,” Davidson noted, recounting the original skit to viewers at the Gramercy Theatre in New York City last December, “I said, ‘Dan Crenshaw, he looks like a hitman in a porn, right?’ Got that f—ing mediocre, you know, laugh.”
“I didn’t think I did anything wrong. It was like words that were twisted so that a guy could be famous,” the 26-year-old comedian added, according to The Hill. “So I made fun of this guy with an eye patch and then, like, I kind of got forced to apologize.”
“The only thing I did do, which I am guilty of and I apologize for, is I did make that guy famous and a household name for no reason,” Davidson said.
Regardless, Crenshaw was not willing to entirely write off the initial apology, telling Kilmeade it is “hard to say” whether Davidson’s apology or his remarks at the Gramercy were more in line with his genuine feelings.
“To be fair, if we took everything that comedians said on a Netflix special seriously, man our country would be in a world of hurt,” Crenshaw said.
“Again, I would like to remember the guy that I saw in person and hung out with that night.”
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