Pete Davidson Tattoo Removal Update, Before After Pics

by Stephanie SoteriouBuzzFeedBuzzFeed StaffI’m an innately nosey and chronically online celebrity and pop culture journalist, with my specialist areas including deep-diving lyrics and calling out Terrible Men™.

People have been left disoriented after Pete Davidson showed off his almost-bare arms during a recent appearance at CinemaCon in Las Vegas.

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As I’m sure you know, the 32-year-old star once had almost his entire body covered with hundreds of tattoos, but he has been slowly working to remove them all since 2020. During a 2021 appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Pete said that he made the decision to remove the ink for the sake of his acting career, noting that it could take him up to “three hours” in a makeup chair to cover all of his tattoos.

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However, in April 2025, Pete shared the more emotional reason behind his decision as he opened up about the mental state that he was in when he decided to get so many inkings in an interview with Variety.

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“It was really just because I wasn’t taking care of myself. I used to be a drug addict and I was a sad person, and I felt ugly and that I needed to be covered up,” he explained. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with tattoos, but mine, when I look at them, I remember a sad person that was very unsure. So I’m just removing them and starting fresh, because that’s what I think works best for me and for my brain.”

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“When I look in the mirror, I don’t want the reminder of ‘Oh yeah, you were a fucking drug addict. Like, that’s why you have SpongeBob smoking a joint on your back,’” Pete added at the time. "They should have meaning. Not just that I was high watching 'Game of Thrones.'"

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For reference, some of Pete’s tattoos included portraits of Hillary Clinton and late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as well as tributes to his then-girlfriends, including Kim Kardashian, Cazzie David, and Ariana Grande.

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Just last month, Pete told Page Six in a video interview that — six years later — he’d almost completed the removal process. He said of the experience: “It’s terrible. They burn off your skin and then you’ve got to do it 10 more times. I think if you can invest in any business, I think you should invest in the tattoo removal business.”

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And in the new pictures, the difference is striking — with there even being a noticeable improvement in the removal process since December 2025, when Pete’s girlfriend, Elsie Hewitt, shared a shirtless photo of the star holding their newborn daughter.

Instagram @elsie / Via instagram.com

Instagram @elsie / Via instagram.com, Valerie Macon / Getty Images

But while Pete has been open about removing his tattoos for literal years — and has shared the poignant reasoning behind it — many still struggled to wrap their heads around the new images when they were shared to social media this past weekend, and couldn't help but overanalyze the whole thing.

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One incredibly viral tweet that has been liked more than 96K times reads: “rich people getting tattoo removal is one of the biggest cultural rugpulls of all time.”

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While another incredibly popular tweet claims: “I don't quite get what it means that people with money are getting their tattoos removed but it can't be anything good,” and somebody else theorized: “having zero tattoos is going to become a coveted status signal sooner than we realize.”

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What do you make of Pete’s transformation? Let me know in the comments below!

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