When Pete Davidson had to come up with performers for his show at this year’s Netflix Is a Joke Festival, he didn’t have to rack his brain all that much. Davidson has been doing stand-up since he was 16, when his friends dared him to take the stage at a bowling alley open mic. Twelve-odd years later, he’s put in his time and made dozens if not hundreds of friends in the biz, including big names like John Mulaney, Bill Burr, Chris Rock and Jon Stewart.
Carly Aquilino
For Pete Davidson: The Best Friends, though, the SNL alum chose to tap some of his more obscure comic pals, including Neko White, Dave Sirus, Jordan Rock, Carly Aquilino, Joey Gay, Giulio Gallarotti and Derek Gaines. After Gaines was unfortunately forced to drop out after getting COVID, Davidson called up his musician buddy Big Wet, who ended up not being the only musical presence on the bill once it was revealed that Machine Gun Kelly — who once lived with Davidson in the comedian’s mom’s house — would close out the show with a few songs.
Pete Davidson: The Best Friends is available to stream now in its entirety, but for anyone looking for just a few highlights before they dive in, here are five moments from the special where Davidson and company got revealing.
While it could be a spoiler to spill what Davidson talked about in his set opening up The Best Friends, every gossip and entertainment site reported it basically the second it happened, so we feel OK about it. In his 10 or so minutes on stage, Davidson jokingly asks the audience, “So how’s your year going?” before slipping into a bit about how he thought he had AIDS after Kanye West got busted for spreading a rumor to that effect about Davidson earlier this year. Davidson says he even got tested, just to be sure, in case West knew something he didn’t.
Kanye West is, of course, the ex-husband of Davidson’s girlfriend Kim Kardashian, and though Davidson calls the rapper “a genius,” it doesn’t seem like the pair’s relationship is great. He does joke, however, that he “secretly hopes” West tries to pull a “Mrs. Doubtfire” to get back into Kardashian’s home.
Though Machine Gun Kelly doesn’t actually show up on stage until the very end of the special, he’s seen quite a bit in backstage footage throughout. There’s a bit near the top where he jokes with Davidson about catching people covertly filming them — something that must be far too common an occurrence for both — with the duo remarking on how people always try to act like they’re not filming them on their phones, even though they clearly are. Davidson jokes that he wishes someone would instead come up to him and say, “Hey, man, good job,” so let that be a lesson to anyone who happens to catch him out and about.
Before Davidson brings MGK up later in the episode, he tells a story about how the pair spent Christmas 2018 in Davidson's mom's Staten Island basement, where they were both living at the time. He said they both thought their careers had peaked or were over, and they were smoking weed and commiserating. Oh how wrong they both were. (Kelly is in a high-profile relationship of his own, having recently gotten engaged to actor Megan Fox.)
One of the special’s best sets comes from SNL writer Dave Sirus, who looks 20 but is actually 44. A self-described “really weird kid,” Sirus does a long run about only realizing years later that the quirks he thought made him cool growing up actually weirded out adults. He says he first started to know when he was sent to a “life skills” class at 13, with all the worst kids in his school, but had all his worst fears confirmed years later when his brother befriended the son of his favorite teacher, who told him his father only humored Sirus’ edgy humor in class because he didn’t know what else to do.
It’s all worked out okay for Sirus now, with the comedian joking during his set that he’s glad his “friendship with Pete” is finally paying off.
Some of the special’s biggest laughs come courtesy of Love actor Jordan Rock. (And, yes, before you ask, he’s related to Chris Rock.) After polling the audience to see who’s older and younger than 25, Rock (who’s 31) lays into the under-25s, saying that, as a millennial, he’s really just coming to terms with the fact that Gen Z is the absolute worst. He jokes that he hates when Gen Z kids say they’re wearing a cool T-shirt because “clothing’s my outlet,” before transitioning into a bit about people he knows contributing to GoFundMe campaigns when they still owe him $40.
Big Wet
Though Davidson has clearly always had a little hip-hop cred, he gets to remind us of the fact in Best Friends. He stays on stage after introducing Big Wet and MGK, acting as a sort of hype man/backup rapper, and he doesn’t look out of place. Though neither act is really delivering blistering bars like Twista, Davidson definitely keeps up. It’s good to know that if this whole comedy/acting/being super famous thing doesn’t work out, he’s still got something else that he can fall back on.
Watch Davidson joke about attending an NBA game with a few famous friends in the clip below:
