Pete Davidson is officially a dad. The comedian and actor, best known for his time on “Saturday Night Live,” has welcomed his first child with girlfriend Elsie Hewitt, a model and actress.
The couple shared the news on December 18, 2025 , through Hewitt’s Instagram, revealing that their daughter, Scottie Rose Hewitt Davidson, was born on December 12, 2025.
Davidson, 32, and Hewitt, 29, have been in the spotlight since they first confirmed their relationship in March 2025. Their romance quickly captured public attention, especially after a series of playful beach outings and affectionate public appearances in Palm Beach, Florida.
The couple’s journey from dating to parenthood has been marked by both excitement and anticipation, with Davidson openly embracing the new responsibilities and joys of fatherhood.
Friends and insiders have shared that Davidson has been deeply involved in preparing for the arrival of their daughter. From helping set up the nursery to making sure Hewitt felt supported throughout her pregnancy, the comedian has shown a thoughtful and caring side that has impressed those close to him.
Hewitt, for her part, has expressed her overwhelming joy and gratitude, describing their daughter as “my best work yet” and sharing her disbelief at the miracle of motherhood.
The Relationship Timeline and Public Milestones
Davidson and Hewitt’s relationship timeline is a testament to their quick connection and shared happiness. The couple first sparked romance rumors when paparazzi captured them enjoying a beach day filled with public displays of affection in March 2025.
Their relationship moved fast, with Hewitt officially confirming the romance on her Instagram Stories by sharing a video of Davidson in a white bathrobe, a playful nod to their growing bond.
In May 2025, the couple made their red carpet debut together, marking their relationship as a public one. Around the same time, sources told People magazine that Davidson and Hewitt had moved in together, splitting their time between his property upstate and a rented brownstone in Brooklyn.
Pete Davidson and Elsie Hewitt (Credit: BBC)
Their commitment to each other was further solidified when they announced their pregnancy in July 2025, sharing a series of photos and videos on Instagram that included a sonogram clip and a cheeky caption from Hewitt: “welp now everyone knows we had sex.
As the pregnancy progressed, the couple continued to share special moments with their fans. In August 2025, they took a romantic beach vacation ahead of the birth, with Hewitt showing off her growing baby bump in a little triangle bikini.
These glimpses into their life together have only deepened the connection fans feel with the couple, making their journey to parenthood all the more relatable and inspiring.
Fan and Industry Reactions
The news of Davidson and Hewitt’s baby has been met with widespread excitement and well-wishes from fans and industry insiders alike. Social media platforms have been flooded with congratulatory messages, with fans expressing their happiness for the couple and sharing their own thoughts on the joys of parenthood.
Friends and colleagues in the entertainment industry have also weighed in, with many expressing their admiration for Davidson’s transition into fatherhood.
Insiders have noted that both Davidson and Hewitt are “so excited about becoming parents” and that they are doing everything they can to prepare for this new chapter in their lives. The couple’s openness and authenticity have resonated with fans, who appreciate the genuine and heartfelt way they have shared their journey.
As Davidson and Hewitt settle into their new roles as parents, the world watches with anticipation. Their story is a reminder that even in the fast-paced world of celebrity, the most meaningful moments are often the ones shared with family.
With the arrival of Scottie Rose Hewitt Davidson, Pete Davidson, and Elsie Hewitt have taken their first steps into a new and joyful chapter, one that promises to be filled with love, laughter, and endless dad jokes.
Robert Downey Jr. could have coasted comfortably after finally winning that Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing Lewis Strauss in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, yet his next big statement comes not from another prestige film but from a twisty HBO historical thriller, The Sympathizer.
The limited series, adapted from Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and produced with A24, drops him into a post‑Vietnam War spy story where he slips in and out of multiple identities like a show‑off magician who happens to know exactly what he is doing.
The Sympathizer follows a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist double agent whose loyalties and ethics are tested as he moves from the collapsing South Vietnam to exile in the United States. Hoa Xuande leads a predominantly Vietnamese cast, while Downey circles him, portraying a series of powerful American figures.
Where Strauss in Oppenheimer was a single, tightly coiled man whose bitterness slowly hardened across one film, HBO hands Downey four distinct supporting roles across the series, each embodying a different face of American power during and after the war.
Director Park Chan-wook, working alongside co-creator Don McKellar, leans into Nguyen’s biting satire and gives Downey license to be theatrical, grotesque, and darkly funny as he plays a CIA operative, a Hollywood director, a slick Orange County politician, and an academic type whose intellectual confidence masks structural arrogance.
Early coverage from outlets like Deadline, Variety, and Screen Rant has stressed how the HBO series becomes a platform for Downey to push far past the minimalist, almost ascetic work Nolan demanded from him in Oppenheimer.
What makes the performance feel so startling is not just the prosthetics work and aging makeup that transform him from one supporting character to another, but the way he threads a common emotional throughline: each version of “America” Downey plays is charming, seductive, and casually cruel in a slightly different register.
That choice lines up with Nguyen’s original novel, which uses satire to investigate how American institutions interpret and repackage the Vietnam War, and it turns Downey’s work into a kind of acting essay on power rather than a simple showcase reel.
Better Than Oppenheimer? Why Awards Buzz Says Yes
Comparing any television performance to an Oscar-winning film turn is tricky, yet The Sympathizer gives Downey something Oppenheimer did not: time.
In Nolan’s film, Lewis Strauss appears in sharply defined bursts, his arc built around a series of hearings and grudges; the performance is almost musical in how it builds toward that final humiliation.
On HBO, Downey appears across episodes in very different guises, creating a cumulative impression of systemic pressure bearing down on the unnamed Captain at the center of the story.
Screen Rant and other entertainment outlets have argued that this multi-character approach actually results in richer work than his Oscar role, precisely because it allows Downey to demonstrate range without losing coherence.
The nods to Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove are hard to miss, as they point out, but where Sellers leaned into anarchic absurdity, Downey’s performances feel tethered to real American archetypes that shaped Vietnamese lives during and after the war.
Critics also note that, while Oppenheimer asked him to suppress many of his trademark rhythms, The Sympathizer invites him to weaponize those familiar Downey quirks and then twist them into something sour.
Industry reporters have already suggested that this role could extend the awards streak that began with Oppenheimer, noting HBO’s history of shepherding challenging limited series toward Emmys and Golden Globes.
The network has deep experience partnering with A24 on edgy, conversation-starting projects, from Euphoria to Irma Vep, and The Sympathizer looks positioned as their prestige historical show with a political punch.
That combination of a proven awards campaign machine and a big-name star stretching himself makes it easy to picture Downey’s HBO work sitting alongside his Oscar on future highlight reels.
There is also a sense that Downey is consciously writing a second act for his career after saying goodbye to Iron Man, a move that trade press has framed as a smart pivot into more complex, director-driven projects.
His back-to-back collaborations with Nolan, Park Chan-wook, and premium cable suggest a strategy built on prestige rather than box office, even as Marvel insiders confirm he will return to the MCU in a very different capacity as Doctor Doom across upcoming Avengers films.
Oppenheimer (Credit: Netflix)
That mixture of comic book megafame and dark, thorny prestige roles gives extra weight to claims that his HBO performance is the most interesting work he has done since stepping out of the armor.
What The Sympathizer’s Success Means For RDJ And Prestige TV
The Sympathizer is not just a big moment for Downey; it is a statement about what ambitious television can attempt when it treats war stories as political satire instead of straightforward hero tales.
The series keeps Hoa Xuande’s Captain at the emotional center while using Downey’s rotating antagonists to show how American power shapes and distorts his choices, creating a more pointed critique than what many mainstream Vietnam War projects have attempted.
That structure allows Downey to draw audiences in with star power while the narrative keeps pulling attention back to Vietnamese characters and their fractured loyalties.
Park Chan Wook’s involvement also matters for both Downey and HBO, since the Oldboy filmmaker brings a taste for moral ambiguity and heightened style that stands apart from more traditional Oscar bait.
Early responses highlight how his direction balances espionage tension, dark humor, and introspective character work, giving Downey’s four roles a vivid visual context that keeps them from feeling like stunt casting.
For viewers who admired the restraint of Downey’s Oppenheimer performance but missed his wilder comic energy, The Sympathizer functions as a kind of answer, showing how those instincts can be used for something far more acidic than Tony Stark’s swagger.
Looking ahead, the HBO series may signal the path Downey will follow between Marvel obligations and more idiosyncratic projects such as the long-gestating series Singularity that he is developing with Anthony Michael Hall.
Hall recently mentioned that they brought in Glee and American Horror Story veteran Brad Falchuk to help reshape that show after noticing parallels with Succession, another sign that Downey sees television as fertile ground for risk-taking collaborations.
Combined with his rumored directorial ambitions on Singularity and his confirmed return to the MCU as a villain, The Sympathizer suggests an artist interested in switching gears rather than repeating past hits.
For awards voters and casual fans alike, that is the real reason so many are saying his HBO performance outshines his already decorated Oppenheimer work.
The sympathy and discomfort he draws out of each character in The Sympathizer feel like a culmination of decades spent moving from indie dramas to courtroom thrillers to superhero epics, now funneled into a project that is unafraid to question American narratives about war.
If Oppenheimer proved that he could disappear into a single historical figure with surprising subtlety, The Sympathizer shows that, given a more daring framework and several masks to wear, Robert Downey Jr. can turn television into the most exciting stage of his career yet.
