Pete Davidson hints at 'Saturday Night Live' exit: 'I'm ready to hang up the jersey'

Saturday Night Live's Season 46 finale last Saturday night painted an ominous—albeit vague—picture in terms of which cast members may or may not be returning to Season 47 and beyond.

Alarm bells were set off for fans when Kate McKinnon got choked up during the cold open, when Cecily Strong sang "My Way" as Jeanine Pirro, and when Pete Davidson ended his "Weekend Update" segment by saying, "It's been an honor to grow up in front of you guys, so thanks."

Davidson added fuel to the fire while participating The Hollywood Reporter's latest actor's roundtable. THR's Lacey Rose asked whether Davidson would consider doing 18 seasons of SNL like his fellow cast member Kenan Thompson has.

"Yeah, I’m good," Davidson said. "I’m surprised I made it to seven. I’m ready to hang up the jersey. Kenan’s like f—n' Karl Malone out there."

(To be fair, SNL's Chris Redd also said he "would never do 18 seasons.")

Davidson joined the SNL cast in September 2014 as one of its youngest-ever members at just 20 years old. Now 27, the actor and comedian is shifting his career to focus more on film acting—even going so far as to remove all of his tattoos. 

The Staten Island native has already starred in Big Time Adolescence (2019) and The King of Staten Island (2020), and the latter was directed by Judd Apatow and based loosely on his choppy coming of age after his father died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Moving forward, Davidson will star in August's The Suicide Squad as well as the forthcoming The Things They Carried, as announced last November. It was also revealed last month that he will be portraying Joey Ramone for a future Netflix biopic.

As for SNL, Page Six was told by an anonymous NBC source that "contracts for the next season won't be decided until later in the summer."