Channing Tatum Reveals If He’ll Tell His Daughter He Was a Stripper

Channing Tatum plans on being fully transparent with his daughter about his past work as a stripper. The Magic Mike’s Last Dance actor, 42, revealed to Entertainment Tonight in a new interview that when his 9-year-old daughter Everly is “old enough” to watch the R-rated Magic Mike franchise, he’ll open up about his own experiences stripping. 

“When she’s old enough to watch them, we’ll have that conversation,” Tatum told the outlet of his daughter with ex-wife Jenna Dewan. “There’s no version of me not having the conversation of ‘Dad didn’t just do them in movies, I was an actual stripper,’ so I’m not gonna lie to her.” 

The 21 Jump Street star has been open publicly about his days stripping, revealing that he dropped out of Glenville State College in West Virginia at age 18 to perform local nightclub under the name Chan Crawford. After making his Hollywood debut, Tatum would use those experiences in 2012 to star in Magic Mike, which was followed by Magic Mike XXL and Magic Mike’s Last Dance, which premieres in theaters Feb. 10. 

Tatum told Entertainment Tonight that Magic Mike’s Last Dance is most likely the final movie in the franchise, and while the story of Magic Mike, which continues through its stage production Magic Mike Live, is “just gonna keep going,” he “can’t tell you there’s gonna be another” film. 

“I think that at some point he was like, ‘Oh, I’m glad this is the last one ’cause I don’t have to get into this shape again,’” Tatum’s Magic Mike’s Last Dance co-star Salma Hayek added, to which Tatum joked that didn’t believe he would be able to get back in that kind of shape again. “The day they said wrap, he went crazy! We’re going to the wrap party in the cars and he [was in] the other car shoving the pizza [in his mouth],” Hayek recalled. “Like the Cookie Monster, but it was the piizza monster. He was so happy.” Tatum confirmed, “I was rubbing it on my face. I was just like, ‘Ahhh.’” Magic Mike’s Last Dance hits theaters on Feb. 10.