Before Channing Tatum played a stripper in the movie Magic Mike he played a stripper in real life.

Yep, before Tatum earned big paychecks from movies like 21 Jump Street, Haywire, and G.I. Joe, he worked for dollar bills at a strip club.

The Hollywood Reporter notes that his new movie, Magic Mike, is loosely based on the period of his life when he performed at Florida strip clubs under the name Chan Crawford.

(Others say that Channing Tatum stole the stripper story for Magic Mike but Tatum denies those claims.)

Tatum said:

“Some people go to college. Some people go to acting school. Some people go to business school. I threw myself into a bunch of different jobs – I feel like I went to the school of life in a way – and stripping happened to be one of them… It was a crazy one. I really enjoyed dancing. It was my favorite part of the job. I didn’t really like taking my clothes off. But I made good money and kept the party going, and it was great for a while.”

Here’s the video of Channing Tatum stripping. (He’s the one in the grass skirt.)

Have you seen Magic Mike? The new movie opened this weekend and had a pretty successful opening weekend.Magic Mike took in over $2 million during its midnight debut.

Channing Tatum Strips On Stage, And Not In ‘Magic Mike’ [Video] is a post from: The Inquisitr