Did All Of This Really Happen To Pete Holmes?

Tell everybody what happened to you. You mean really? Yeah. I want people to know your whole story. I got married when I was 22. I went to a Christian college. I thought I was going to be a youth pastor. I'd like to dispel this. I was never a part of the Christian comedy circuit. That's still, people introduce me at TV tapings. They'll be like, this guy was on a... That was on the show. That was just on the show. I did perform in Christian markets and at my Christian college a couple of times, but I never did the circuit. I think there is a circuit. There are certain people that work the religious circuit. I never did that. So I don't want to front as they say. Okay. So I was going to be a pastor, a youth pastor. I went to Gordon College, which is a non-denominational Christian college in New England. I got married my senior year. Right after my senior year, I wanted to move to Chicago to do improv, but I was very codependent. I didn't know any of these terms at the time. I was very codependent and also very scared. And I was 22. And I also didn't want to live in sin. That's a real thing. So my girlfriend and I got married very unceremoniously. There was no engagement. There was no ring. I was just like, well, I'm moving. It's almost like it's a little Aspie. It's like on the spectrum. I was like, well, I want to get married. I mean, I want to move to Chicago. We're dating. I don't want to break up. I asked my mom, she was like, you should marry her. I was like, okay. Real insanity. But it is what a lot of people do. You're 22. I think you and I both forget what it's like. Oh no, I remember. I was a ******* idiot. I mean, I certainly, it was more of a guileless sort of like what could go wrong. I was a real golden boy. Nothing had really ever not gone, not just gone my way. I wasn't always like I won the lottery. It wasn't like that. There was stress and stuff like teasing high school, junior high, all that sort of stuff. But I still felt like inherently sort of golden. And I was like, if I'm going to move to Chicago and do comedy, I will be okay. That's going to work out. So I might as well, and this is a real key as to why I got divorced. I was like, I may as well get married because that'll take that off my plate, who you're going to be with. The least romantic gesture you could ever have. I'm pretty sure I probably even said that at parties. I was like, get married. One less thing to think about. And really, of course, a relationship, you have to continue to woo the person, continue to pursue them. I did the same thing. I got married because I thought I was supposed to get married. A lot of people do. People are currently planning those weddings right now. And you know what? Maybe they should do it because I'm not here to tell you one way or the other, anybody listening, but a bad marriage is maybe what you need. I needed it. And it wasn't a garbage marriage or anything, but it was fine. We were friends. It was a friendship marriage. We were buddies. And my current wife and I are buddies too, but we're also not to use the gross word lovers, but we have a much more romantic, a deeper romantic connection than my first wife and I did. We were just buddies. I still have a wife that is my best friend, but there's other dimensions to it. There's the co-parent, there's the sexual, there's all these things. So it's a grownup relationship. The first one was just, I'm scared of comedy. You want to come with me? So she did. And then she ran out of interest in that. And frankly, I think she wanted to demonstrate to her parents that you could leave a marriage, honestly. I think there was sort of like, I'll do what my parents couldn't do and I'll get divorced. I really think that was- And were you heartbroken? Yeah, it was rough. So when I was 20, I got married at 22, 28, she had an affair. But it wasn't just like a sex thing. It was like she fell in love and we had just moved upstate. So I was miserable. This is a long story, but anyway, she told me. And then like the show Crashing, I really did get tripled down into my pursuit of comedy. And this is- Once she was gone. When she was gone, I realized all I had was comedy and that was actually kind of good. Yeah. I look back and I'm like, if we had stuck together, when I was married the first time, for example, I would worry about getting SNL. I'd submit, I'd walk into 30 Rock, I'd hand in my little DVD of my impressions or whatever. And then I'd actually be nervous that I would get it because I knew if I got it, it would be a huge strain on the relationship. And then once the relationship ended, which I didn't want it to end, but slowly I started to realize like, oh no, you're supposed to be, you're supposed to live a little bit like a hitman. You're supposed to have a gross apartment that you don't want to be at. So you book a lot of spots. What did Norm say? If you're a standup, you're a drifter. Yeah, we're drifters. And then it became good news if I got SNL and I went out for things more earnestly. And I'm not saying, by the way, Nate Bargatze was married around the same time I was, has stayed married. I'm not saying you can't do it. I'm saying... You need the right person. Yeah, you certainly need the right person. And it probably isn't the person you agreed to marry because your mom said to in a Cal door parking lot. But because the marriage fell apart, it's like I went through my 20s and my 30s. I was 28 when she left. And then I got to like, I dated a lovely woman, kind of a rebound. It was like four weeks after my wife and I split because again, deeply codependent. But I got to see what it was like to have a relationship and smoke cigarettes and get drunk and all this nonsense. Were you still, were you actually that wide-eyed as you portray in Crashing? It's a little bit more on the show, but not much. So you were kind of like, oh man, I'm in New York and this is a sex shop and a little bit, right? Yeah. I mean, a lot of that stuff was based on real things. Some of it was after I came out to LA. The relationship of the woman who took me to a sex shop was based on a real woman I dated when I came to LA who was just incredibly... And I say this as a positive thing. She was very comfortable with her sexuality. So we'd go to sex shops and I was very uncomfortable with my sexuality. We went to a pet store to buy a leash. I'm freaking out telling you this right now. Here's your thumbnail. We bought a leash for what? We never used it. I say that I'm proud of. We never used it. We'd go on the leash. She would go on the leash. Yeah. I mean, we never did it though because she was just leagues. I had people around in New York. There's nothing wrong with leash if you want to do that. But my... Jason, this is how I know I'm a comedian. I have a... I don't know if kinky is still a okay word, but I'm meaning it in a good way. I have like a kinky sex positive girlfriend. She takes me to a pet shop to buy a leash to put on her neck. My favorite part of that experience was improvising to the pet shop owner what kind of fake dog we have. Because I did a little improv scene. I was like, yeah, he's probably like 30 pounds. That was my favorite part. Most guys would be like, oh, I get to have kinky leash sex. I was like, I think I really convinced this guy at PetSmart that we had a dog. And did you see I made him laugh? That is how you know you're a comedian. I had a moment like that this morning, a real life comedian moment. I went in, I got my coffee at Starbucks and I hadn't... It hadn't gone through. The order hadn't gone through. They said, oh, Jason, we don't see it. They see me. Oh, let me put it through. And they go, well, I guess you just want to spend more time with us like that. And I go, I go, oh yeah, yeah. And I said, well, yeah, I brought you guys all here. I have something to tell you. And that got a laugh, right? But it was too early in the morning. Yes. You had to get your coffee, literally. I couldn't finish. What I wanted to say was, I'm going to become a dancer, but I couldn't get it out. So there was just this like awkward, like four seconds where there was four people, four baristas like... And then once I said it, I had missed the timing. It was over. No, welcome to my life. That is me every day.