Pete Davidson is "starting fresh" with the removal of his tattoos.

The 31-year-old comedian has been inked around 200 times in his life and is in the process of having them all lasered off but admitted that his extreme body art all stemmed from his previous addiction issues.

He told Variety: "I used to be a drug addict and I was a sad person, and I felt ugly and that I needed to be covered up.

"So I'm just removing them and starting fresh, because that's what I think works best for me and for my brain. When I look in the mirror, I don't want the reminder of 'Oh yeah, you were a f******drug addict. Like, that's why you have SpongeBob smoking a joint on your back."

The former 'Saturday Night Live' star has to endure a number of painful sessions per tattoo for removal, and explained that it could take up to a decade until the whole process is complete.

He added: "It's like putting your arm on a grill and burning off a layer.

"It sucks, I'm not gonna lie."

Meanwhile, Pete feels "bad" for the next generation because of the onslaught of social media as he looked back on the "anxiety" that he suffered from, even though the technology he grew up with was relatively limited.

He said: "I really feel bad for this crop of people because I have anxiety and when I grew up it was just flip phones and it was pretty awesome.

"But the kids today, they don't even have a f****** shot. They don't even have a f****** shot. So I just hope it changes and enough people revert backwards a little bit."

Pete - who is currently thought to be single but found global fame when he struck up a relationship with reality superstarKim Kardashian - was then asked for his advice on dating in general and insisted that social media makes "everything really difficult" for that sort of thing.

He said: "I think social media and the internet and the phone in general makes everything really difficult and can cause a lot of anxiety and get you doing bad. We're not supposed to see everyone's s*** all day. It used to be that someone found out something and then you either call on your house phone or you meet up and be like, 'Hey, did you hear about this?' And now you just have this thing in your pocket all day that will make you feel bad. So my advice would just be to just try and not let social media or this fictitious world that we're all trying to have a profile on affect how you behave in everyday life."