The anniversary of September 11, 2001 is reviving heartfeal and painful memories for residents of New York and around the world.
Michael Strahan has told the story of that day many times, but he kept one deeply personal detail to himself for 17 years.
It’s buried in old footage from a football field in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The Giants defensive end bends down, scoops up a small boy in a leather jacket, and sets him on his shoulders.
The boy on his shoulders was comedian and “Saturday Night Live” star Pete Davidson.
He couldn’t have told you that child’s name at the time.
The 54-year-old has spent the past few weeks answering questions about the details he kept quiet in his own personal life. He had no idea he’d be crying about it on camera two decades later.
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The footage resurfaced in “9/11: United We Stand — 25 Years Later,” which premiered Sept. 1 on ABC and is streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
Strahan narrates and executive produces it through his company, SMAC, with Derek Jeter producing alongside him. Jimmy Fallon, Jon Stewart, Jon Bon Jovi, Billy Crystal and Matthew Broderick all sit for it.
The former NFL star was 29 in September 2001, coming off a Monday night loss in Denver on Sept. 10. The team took a red-eye home to Newark.
Strahan says in the special that the Giants’ plane crossed paths with United Airlines Flight 93, the hijacked jet that went down outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, hours later.
“We were lost,” Strahan told People. “We were scared. We were so out of our element because we had never seen anything like that.”
He and his teammates pushed the NFL to postpone that weekend’s games, and other clubs backed them.
When play resumed, the Giants beat Kansas City, then came home to the Meadowlands on Sept. 30 to face the New Orleans Saints.
Before kickoff, the team walked the families of fallen first responders onto the field. One of those families had driven in from Staten Island.
Davidson was 7. His father, FDNY firefighter Scott Davidson of Ladder 118 in Brooklyn Heights, died 19 days earlier while helping evacuate the Marriott World Trade Center.
Davidson was 7. His father, FDNY firefighter Scott Davidson of Ladder 118 in Brooklyn Heights, had been killed 19 days earlier helping evacuate the Marriott World Trade Center.
Strahan lifted him up, carried him out, set him down, and moved on with his life. For 17 years, that was the end of it.
Then the boy found him.
It happened backstage at “Good Morning America” in 2018. Strahan had just interviewed Ariana Grande, newly engaged to Davidson, and the comedian wandered into the recording studio to say hello.
“I was like, ‘Do you remember that kid that you put on your shoulders?’ and he goes, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ And I go, ‘You’re looking at him,’” Davidson says in the documentary, which runs footage of the exchange.
Strahan’s eyes went wide. “Are you kidding me? I’m gonna freaking cry now,” he said in the moment. “You talk about chills,” he adds in the special.
Davidson remembers everything about that afternoon, too. He went with his grandfather and that he wore a little leather jacket.
“When you’re a fan of a team and you’re going through something and they deliver for you, it feels personal,” he says. “You’re a part of something. It was really — a special moment. It’s even more special now because he’s a good friend of mine.”
That friendship isn’t for the cameras. Strahan told People the two have stayed close ever since and built “a very unique relationship.” He told USA TODAY he and Davidson had been texting right before that interview even started.
“I’m very proud of him,” Strahan said. “I’m happy to call him my friend and I refer to him as my little brother.”
Davidson agreed to appear for that reason after turning down similar requests for years.
“He said, ‘I have literally said no to so many of these because a lot of them focus on the sadness of it all,’” Strahan recalled. “But he told me, ‘I trust you, though.’ And when someone you know who’s gone through what he’s gone through tells you that, you better not mess it up.”
Online, people took it exactly the way he’d hoped.
Clips have pulled hundreds of thousands of views on Threads, and the comments have been almost entirely tender.
“His little leather jacket,” one user wrote. “That documentary was a beautiful, touching, and extremely tasteful tribute,” said another. “Pete has a darkness and sadness in his eyes that is very telling,” a third posted. “This man is still hurting his dad’s loss!”
“This is so touching. ‘You’re lookin at him,’” another added. Plenty admitted they hadn’t known the history at all. “I had no idea his father was killed in 9/11,” one wrote.
The timing cuts deeper this year. Davidson is a father now to a daughter, Scottie, named for the grandfather she’ll never get to meet.
“Oh, he was an old guy. He’s 33. But now I’m there, and I have a kid, and that would be like my kid not having her dad,” he told the New York Post. “This year is extra tough, but also extra beautiful because I get to spend the day with Scottie.”
As for Strahan, 2001 ended with 22.5 sacks, a league record that stood 24 years, and Defensive Player of the Year honors. He’s said a team trip to Ground Zero changed how he played the rest of his career.
“You need other people to get through it,” he said. “You need love, you need hope, you need help, you need all those things.”
“9/11: United We Stand — 25 Years Later” is streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
