With Pete Davidson recently quitting Instagram, Kanye West used it as an opportunity to take credit for driving the Saturday Night Live star off the social media platform.
For weeks, the rapper, now known as Ye, had been sharing various rants on the platform related to his estranged wife Kim Kardashian and the children they share, as well as Kim’s new boyfriend Pete Davidson.
A source indicates that Davidson’s exit from Instagram had absolutely nothing to do with Kanye West’s cyberbullying, but it may have had a lot to do with some of the rapper’s fans.
Source shares why Pete Davidson quit Instagram again
Earlier this week, actor and standup comedian Pete Davidson seemed to delete or deactivate his @pmd Instagram profile. That move came soon after Davidson added a link in his official IG bio, which took visitors to a YouTube video. It featured a clip of Robert DeNiro as aspiring comedian Rupert Pupkin from the 1981 film King of Comedy.
“Better to be king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime,” DeNiro’s Pupkin says in the short clip, which many people thought was directed towards Ye.
Upon Davidson deleting or deactivating his IG profile, Ye shared an Instagram post on Thursday with his nearly 15 million fans, claiming he “ran Skete off the gram.” Skete is a nickname Ye’s used to refer to Davidson in various IG posts about him.
However, Page Six reported that a source close to Kim Kardashian says Davidson leaving the social media platform had nothing to do with Kanye West and his rants.
“Pete deleted his IG because immediately after his first post, he started receiving a flood of messages, both positive and negative, reminding him why he didn’t want social media to begin with,” a source told Page Six.
“[Pete] is in the middle of several big film projects and wants to continue to stay very focused on his work and the positive things happening in his life,” the source also said, adding, “Kanye didn’t drive Pete off social media.”
Among Davidson’s upcoming projects are a role in the film Meet Cute, voice work as the title character in Marmaduke, and a role as Max in The Home. As of this report, IMDB indicates Meet Cute is in post-production, with Marmaduke currently filming and The Home in pre-production.
Davidson spoke about how his previous social media exit helped him
In a 2020 appearance on First We Feast’s Hot Ones, Davidson spoke about the decision to get rid of social media because of how it affected his life.
“It’s definitely helped my mental health,” Davidson told host Sean Hayes. “I don’t think it’s good for anybody, but especially anybody that has a job around this stuff because you see every comment.”
Davidson also joked that “no one gives a f**k about your f**king shoes or your watch or your truck or any of that s**t” when it comes to sharing things on social media.
Over the past month or so, West shared many posts which featured him referring to Skete and his seemingly one-sided beef with the SNL star. Those IG posts have all been deleted, except for his post claiming he “ran Skete off the gram,” which is still on Ye’s page as of this report.
The rapper also continued to involve Davidson and Kim in his recent Donda 2 listening party, where he played and performed musical selections that featured references to both.
In particular, Ye debuted a new track called Security as part of Donda 2. The song seemed to refer to a previous situation when Ye tried to pick up his kids at Kim K’s house, but security stopped him at the gate.
Ye also performed the songs Eazy with The Game and City of Gods with Fivio Foreign and Alicia Keys. The tracks feature lines in Ye’s verses aimed at Pete Davidson and Saturday Night Live, as well as references to his divorce.