With his heavily tattooed, ultra-lanky frame, hound-dog eyes and bleach-blonde mop of hair, Pete Davidson may not be everyone’s idea of a heart-throb. Yet the entertainment world’s least-likely Lothario has landed a bevy of beauties — and friends insist Davidson is the one being chased.
“All of these women he has been with approached him,” said the insider, adding that it’s pure coincidence the women are all brunette: “It’s not even that he has a type.”
“With Ariana [Grande], she reached out to him. She asked her manager, Scooter Braun, to set them up,” said an insider of the “Saturday Night Live” star’s pop diva ex-fiancée.
“With Kate Beckinsale, she went over to him at the Netflix after-party at the Golden Globes and started flirting with him,” the insider said of the actress, 20 years Davidson’s senior, with whom the comedian had a very public fling this past winter. “And even now they’re on good terms.
“You wouldn’t think it, but he has impeccable manners and is so polite. I think, honestly, that’s part of the reason women like him.”
His latest beautiful girlfriend is Margaret Qualley, the 24-year-old actress-daughter of ’80s star Andie MacDowall.
Qualley is Hollywood’s starlet of the moment, having had buzzy recent roles in the TV series “Fosse/Verdon” — for which she is up for an Emmy — and opposite Brad Pitt in the Quentin Tarantino film “Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood.”
But this time, friends say, Davidson doesn’t want to repeat his past — especially the way his high-profile, much-photographed relationships imploded in the spotlight.
“He’s been trying to learn from his past relationships and be more low key,” said the insider.
So while the 25-year-old comedian accompanied Qualley, whom he started dating at the start of the summer, to Italy’s Venice Film Festival in August, he took a literal back seat.
At the premiere of Qualley’s film “Seberg,” Davidson didn’t walk the red carpet with his girlfriend. And he was later seen sitting behind her in the audience, looking on proudly as the actress stood up to applause.
Friends add that, while Davidson has a stand-up gig in Toronto on Sept. 21 next Saturday, he is expected to fly to Los Angeles for the Emmy Awards the next day, as Qualley is nominated for Supporting Actress in a Limited Series.
“Pete is really, really happy,” said the insider. “He hasn’t been in touch with everyone, which is why we know he’s OK.”
When Davidson’s brief engagement to Grande ended in October 2018, after just five months of dating, it left the comedian “in a very dark place,” said a friend of Davidson’s.
The Post has previously reported that the relationship ended because Davidson pulled away after the September 2018 overdose death of Grande’s rapper ex-boyfriend, Mac Miller, leading Grande to end things. But then he found himself tormented by Grande’s fans.
“Pete’s friends felt that Ariana’s camp didn’t do enough to support him — they let him be bullied publicly,” said the friend.
(Grande eventually posted an Instagram message to fans that read in part: “You truly don’t know what anybody is experiencing ever . . . So please let whatever point you’re trying to make go. I will always have irrevocable love for him . . .”)
The friend revealed the taunting got so bad that, when the comedian went to Cafeteria in December, a staffer at the Chelsea restaurant put on Grande’s breakup song, “Thank U, Next,” to gauge Davidson’s reaction.
“He was wounded” by that hit song, according to the friend.
Although the song name-checks several Grande exes and gives thanks for what she learned from each, it apparently still wasn’t easy to live with the phenomenon it caused. Davidson has even talked about how his mom, Amy, a school nurse, was affected.
“She was walking in the [school] hallway and some little f–king kid started singing ‘Thank U, Next’ to her,” he said during a standup set in Boston. “Me, I get it, but my mom?”
According to Davidson, the kid was punished by having to sing the song again in front of school administrators.
Davidson has been open about his personal struggles with mental-health issues, including borderline personality disorder, as well as his marijuana use.
On Dec. 15, the NYPD was called to the Rockefeller Center set of “Saturday Night Live” to conduct a wellness check on Davidson after he posted a worrying Instagram message: “I’m doing my best to stay here for you but I actually don’t know how much longer I can last . . .”
A source with knowledge of the incident told The Post, “Several random fans had called the cops . . . all the cast were worried.”
Davidson was well enough to make a brief appearance on that night’s telecast, introducing Mark Ronson and Miley Cyrus as the musical guests, at the behest of show creator Lorne Michaels.
“Fans had to see that Pete was fine for themselves, so Lorne put him on air to introduce the musical act,” said the source with knowledge of the incident.
“Lorne is protective of all the cast, but has a very soft spot for Pete. He’s very understanding towards him — he’s very fatherly.”
Indeed, the two are so close that they have even vacationed together in the Bahamas.
And Davidson spent the summer with another of his mentors, director Judd Apatow, filming a movie in Pete’s home borough of Staten Island.
Part of Davidson’s appeal may be that he can come across — underneath the tattoos and the substance-abuse issues — as a good guy who just needs to be saved.
Indeed, there is plenty of heartache in his life.
His dad, Scott, a New York City firefighter, died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks when the star was just 7 years old.
Davidson was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in his late teens and quickly discovered marijuana as a pain reliever. In 2017, after going to rehab, he said he was sober for the first time in eight years.
Although it’s been reported that the comedian then went back to smoking marijuana for a little while, friends say he is now clean and sober.
He’s also very close to his mother.
“He’s a real mama’s boy. Amy is his bedrock and comes to most [tapings of ‘Saturday Night Live’],” said the insider. “Everyone [who works on the show] loves her. Even if he doesn’t go to the after-party, she still goes. She’s friends with all the other cast members’ moms, too.”
Davidson and his mom are so close, in fact, that they still live in the same house. After Davidson and Grande split, he moved out of the singer’s $16 million High Line apartment and into the basement of the Staten Island home he purchased for Amy.
The two sometimes have dinner together at home, according to a Davidson source, and the comedian has said that he cried at his mom’s kitchen table after the Grande breakup.
“But it’s not like he really lives ‘at home,’ ” said the Davidson source. “He has a separate entrance and it’s like they’re two different homes.”
But, the source added, he doesn’t tend to take his gorgeous dates back to his place.
A typical night out with Davidson often includes dinner at a restaurant, such as Carbone in Greenwich Village, where he is a regular.
Any woman who is going to stick around has to get the approval of Davidson’s mom — as Grande did — as well as his childhood friend Ricky Velez, a comedian with whom he sometimes tours. Velez also landed a role in the Judd Apatow project.
“Pete has a really good support system now,” said the insider.
And on Sept. 28, Davidson should be back at 30 Rock for the season premiere of “Saturday Night Live,” hosted by Woody Harrelson with musical guest Billie Eilish.
Despite all the drama that follows him, cast and crew members adore him, according to “SNL” insiders.
“Pete is only 25, and he���s so sweet,” said one show source. “You can’t help but love him.
SNL has to deal with several calls about Pete — like when he was rude about Dan Crenshaw, like the time on-air that Davidson mocked the Texas congressman who as a Navy SEAL lost an eye fighting in Afghanistan.
“But if you picked up the phone at 4 a.m. and called him, he’d be there for you.”