Pete Davidson's comedy has made him a target again after he joked about switching fiancee Ariana Grande's birth control pills with candy.
The Saturday Night Live regular was talking about his romance on the season premiere of the U.S. sketch comedy show (29Sep18), when he made the quip - and it didn't go down well among women's rights activists, who took aim at Pete on social media on Sunday.
"Last night I switched her birth control with Tic Tacs," he laughed. "I believe in us and all, but I just want to make sure that she can’t go anywhere."
His joke fell flat as many social media users pointed out that sabotaging a woman's efforts not to get pregnant isn't a laughing matter.
One critic, Ariel Rose, wrote: "Generally I thought Pete Davidson was funny, but until birth control sabotage stops being a common form of abuse and a way abusers trap women in dangerous relationships, I'm not going to laugh at that joke #SNLPremiere not funny."
Another user added: "Hey Pete Davidson, can you not make creepy and uncalled for jokes about switching your fiancee’s birth control with tic tacs? Let’s not normalize that disgusting manipulation."
It's not the first time Pete's comedy has come under attack - a joke he made about the bomb blast at his now-fiancee's concert in Manchester, England last year (17) was savaged when it was printed in a U.K. tabloid shortly after he started dating Ariana.
During a stand-up routine at The Laugh Factory in Los Angeles in October (17), Davidson joked that his future girlfriend must be bigger than Britney Spears, because "Britney Spears didn’t have a terrorist attack at her concert".
Editors at British tabloid The Mirror exposed Pete's ill-advised gag in June (18), prompting Charlotte Hodgson, whose 15-year-old daughter was killed in the attack, to scold him.
"For anyone to joke about this situation is disgusting and I think he should publicly apologise for it...," she told the newspaper. "We don’t need jokes about it, there have been plenty around, and it’s heartbreaking to hear every day. But for someone so famous to be doing it and now to be with Ariana, it’s outrageous. I think she would be horrified too."
Grande responded to a Twitter follower, who asked her why she was still with Pete after his "rude" joke came to light.
"This has been tough & conflicting on my heart," the No Tears Left to Cry star wrote. "He (Davidson) uses comedy to help people feel better ab (about) how f**ked up things in this world are. We all deal with trauma differently. I of course didn't find it funny. It was months ago & his intention wasn't/is never malicious but it was unfortunate."
