What began with a regrettable joke on SNL’s “Weekend Update” has turned into something encouraging to the country, and potentially helpful for one of the men who appears to be going through some personal struggles.
Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw (TX) revealed Monday that he had reached out to Pete Davidson — the comedian who described him as a “hit-man in a porno movie” because of his eye-patch, which Crenshaw wears after losing his eye in an IED blast in Afghanistan — after Davidson posted a troubling statement online.
“i really don’t want to be on this earth anymore. i’m doing my best to stay here for you but I actually don’t know how much longer I can last,” Davidson, who has admitted to struggling with depression in the past, wrote in a since-deleted Instagram post Saturday. “all I ever tried to do was help people. just remember I told you so.”
The message raised enough alarms that police and his ex-fiancee Ariana Grande rushed to 30 Rockefeller Center Saturday, where he was likely to be in preparation for that night’s SNL production. “The New York Police Department also made a visit to NBC headquarters in midtown Manhattan, according to an NYPD spokesperson, who confirmed to ABC News that the department did what is known as a ‘wellness check’ on the comedian at his workplace and that they ‘made contact,'” ABC News reports.
In response to the alarming post, Crenshaw says he reached out to Davidson to try to offer some encouragement.
“It was pretty … devastating,” Crenshaw told KPRC’s Khambrell Marshall in an interview Monday (video below). “You don’t want to see somebody in that kind of position, to the point where they’re actually putting out a cry for help on social media — that’s not a good place to be in. Actually, I talked to him personally yesterday, and talked to him for a little bit about it … You know, we don’t go back very far, we’re not good friends, but I think he appreciated hearing from me.”
“And what I told him was this: Everybody has a purpose in this world — God put you here for a reason — but it’s your job to find that purpose,” Crenshaw continued. “And you should live that way, with seeking out that purpose, not expecting it to be given to you by anybody else. And know that you have value and that you maybe do more good than you realize for people, especially a guy like that. He makes people laugh — and sometimes he makes people mad,” Crenshaw added with a laugh. “But he makes people laugh a lot. And that’s what we talked about. It was a good conversation.”
After some backlash for the porno hit-man joke, Davidson and SNL invited Crenshaw onto “Weekend Update” to make amends. Here’s video of the instantly viral appearance: