Channing Tatum says he’ll tell daughter Everly that he used to be a stripper

‘I’m not gonna lie to her,’ the actor says

Channing Tatum revealed that he plans on eventually telling his daughter, Everly, that he used to be a stripper.

The 42-year-old actor addressed the stripping he’s done both on and off-screen during a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight to discuss his upcoming movie, Magic Mike’s Last Dance. During the conversation, he shared his plans to be open with his nine-year-old, who he shares with ex-wife Jenna Dewan, about this aspect of his career.

“When she’s old enough to watch them, we’ll have that conversation,” he said about his films. “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.”

When his co-star Salma Hayek noted that Everly may “already know” about her father’s history of stripping, Tatum agreed and said that she “probably does”.

The 21 Jump Street star has previously opened up about his career as a stripper. During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2014, he discussed how he started stripping at 19-years-old shortly after he’d dropped out of the University of South Florida.

When asked how much he made, he said: “Not as much as you think. On a good night, 150 bucks. On a bad night, 70 bucks — even 50 at times.”

He also noted how his role in 2012’s Magic Mike was based on his personal experience as a stripper and even detailed a trip he took to a stripper convention in the 1990s.

“The ‘convention’ was not strippers peddling stripper technology or anything like that,” Tatum said. “It was just a big show with 50 to 70 strippers and 2,000 to 3,000 women. It was crazy. They attacked me every night.”

Along with the first Magic Mike film, Tatum notably went on to star in Magic Mike XXL and his new movie, Magic Mike’s Last Dance.

While working for the franchise, Tatum and his then-wife welcomed their daughter in 2013. He and Dewan later announced their separation in 2018, before finalising their divorce in 2019.

Earlier this month, The Lost City star reflected on his divorce during an interview with Vanity Fair, and detailed how he and Dewan “had sort of grown apart” before it. He also confesed how “super scary and terrifying” the breakup was, as the plan he had for his life “had literally just turned into sand” and “went through [his] fingers.