Pete Davidson left Kaia Gerber troubled about dating older men, interview reveals

Supermodel Kaia Gerber has opened up in a new interview about the hazards of launching a supermodel career at 13, saying international travel meant she couldn’t enjoy the usual teen experience of being in high school and developing some “emotional maturity” by dating boys her own age.

Instead, the daughter of supermodel Cindy Crawford finished her classes at Malibu High online. Gerber, now 19, also told Vogue she started to date “older people, because those were the people I was around.”

One of those people was “Saturday Night Live” star Pete Davidson. Reports at the time said that Gerber had just turned 18 when she started dating Davidson, then 26, in the fall of 2019.

Vogue described the heavily-tattooed Davidson as gaining a reputation as a “troubled lothario.” The actor and comedian has been open about his mental health struggles, as he has cycled through relationships with famous women of all ages, from Ariana Grande to Kate Beckinsale.

Gerber is careful to not mention Davidson by name in her Vogue interview, but she talks about how, as a teenager, modeling in New York or Paris, she found herself in situations where “I was, like, I actually don’t have the life experience that I need to handle this.”

On one hand, Gerber said she was successfully driving her career, but she admitted to Vogue she lacked “emotional maturity” for handling her personal life.

“You know,” Gerber said, “I was doing fashion month, but I was so young I had kissed, like, only one person. I had never had a high school sweetheart or anything. And so I tended to date older people because those were the people I was around.

“And I got put in situations where one day I’d wake up and be like, How did I get here?’” Gerberg continued. “I have no idea what I’m doing, and I need help. And being able to ask for that help was amazing. That’s what real growing up means, not being afraid to ask.”

Gerber and Davidson ended their relationship in early 2020, just after the holidays and after he admitted entering rehab, Page Six reported at the time. Gerber realized that the comic was a bit too old for her and his self-described mental health issues had become “overwhelming,” Page Six said.

Reports at the time revealed that Gerber’s power couple parents, Crawford and tequila magnate Rande Gerber, swooped into New York City to help their daughter deal with Davidson’s mental health issues, which Davidson has said includes borderline personality disorder.

An insider also told E! News at the time that Crawford and Rande Gerber “tried to intervene and offer what they could. It’s been upsetting for Kaia and for them to see their daughter dealing with something so serious.”

During one of his “Weekend Update” segments on “Saturday Night Live,” Davidson said he was going to spend the 2019 Christmas holidays in rehab. A couple months later, he acknowledged that his personal struggles had been too much for Gerber told handle.

“She’s very young, and I’m (expletive) going through a lot and it was before I went to rehab,” he told Charlamagne Tha God in an interview in February.

As recently as last month, Davidson said in another interview that he warns women he wants to date that he’s got issues. New reports say that Davidson is now dating “Bridgerton” actress Phoebe Dynevor, 26.

“I just off the top (tell them) I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m nuts,’” Davidson said in the interview. “Here’s all my issues. Here’s what I do. Here’s the therapist. This is what happens.”

Crawford told Vogue that she thought she and her husband had gotten off lucky with their children, believing that their children had passed through their teen years relatively unscathed, but the supermodel realized she was wrong when her daughter needed help with her relationship issues, and her son, Presley, 20, another regular subject of the tabloids, was arrested for a DUI in 2018.

“A little later, it hit us in ways we didn’t necessarily expect,” Crawford said. “But you just have to let your kids fly and be there to pick them up if they fall. My husband, who has a great perspective, always tells me, ‘Cindy, this too shall pass.’”

According to Gerber’s Vogue comments, she seemed to agree that she needed to start finding romance with a man closer to her own age. That, in fact, has happened. According to Vogue, Gerber began dating 23-year-old actor Jacob Elordi, the “heartthrob” and star of HBO’s edgy teen drama “Euphoria,” in September.

“Being able to be with someone I trust, where we don’t want anything from each other, having a safe, steady relationship like that, has really opened my eyes to the possibilities of love and what it feels like to love without conditions” Gerber told Vogue.