Channing Tatum Opens Up About Dark Stripper Past

When Magic Mike first came out, Channing Tatum was open to talking about his stripper past, and he still is. But now he’s talking about the darker side of it all, one that doesn’t celebrate the crazy gluttonous lifestyle.

In a profile piece for The Hollywood Reporter, Tatum revealed that not everything was as good as gold during his stripper days. According to the actor, he did dabble in drugs while he was stripping, but he didn’t fall into a hole because of it.

“I wouldn’t say I was losing myself in drugs because I wasn’t doing anything habitually,” said the Magic Mike star.

He continued, “Just experimenting. Experimenting, I would say. Never the big ones-crack or heroin. I never OD’d or anything. Never.”

His biggest vice, which he touched on in a Details profile earlier in the year, was drinking.

“Drinking was probably the biggest [thing]. I didn’t look at drinking as a problem. It wasn’t at that point, and I still don’t think it’s a problem. But at that time in my life, it was, ‘Let’s go out and have a great time.'”

Prior to the interview, he expressed to Details that he did drink in excess, and went on to say that he was a “high-functioning alcoholic,” which he later said was an incorrect way of explaining just how extreme he can be with his vices.

As for Magic Mike, the characters in the film are making big bucks from stripping, but for Tatum it was the opposite of that.

“On a good night, 150 bucks. On a bad night, 70 bucks — even 50 at times.”

If that wasn’t enough, Tatum recalled a moment where a truly bizarre encounter happened while he was giving a lap dance to a woman.

“The lady goes, ‘Oh my God! Look at you! You remind me of my nephew!’ — and then grabs me. It hit me like a hand grenade. It was like tick, tick, tick, boom: She’s grabbing my butt and saying, ‘You remind me of my nephew.'”

Another real life experience for Tatum is making up the whole premise for the sequel Magic Mike XXL. The sequel, which is currently filming, will take people out of the strip clubs and into a stripper convention.

“I have no idea why it’s called a convention. The ‘convention’ was not strippers peddling stripper technology or anything like that. 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.”

Are you excited for Magic Mike XXL?

[Image via Warner Bros.]