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Channing Tatum<\/a><\/strong> is reflecting on a wild time in his life<\/a> when he briefly worked as a male stripper.<\/p>\n The Magic Mike <\/em>actor, 45, stopped by The Drew Barrymore Show<\/a><\/em> on Friday<\/a> (Jan. 23) where he got candid about working in a strip club and discussed how stripping now is completely different than it used to be.<\/p>\n “I’m not gonna lie, it’s weird,” Tatum said of his former job. “Back then, it was a different kind than we’re doing now.”<\/p>\n \ud83c\udfac <\/strong>SIGN UP for Parade\u2019s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox<\/strong><\/a> \ud83c\udfac <\/strong><\/p>\n He continued, “I mean, I was 18 and just kind of looking to go a little crazy, you know. I was looking for the wild time and I found it.”<\/p>\n Tatum went on to explain that it involved a lot of interaction with people he didn’t know\u2014and it could go from entertaining to weird pretty quickly.<\/p>\n “You go out and get on somebody you don’t know and it’s fun until somebody’s like, ‘You remind me of my nephew.’ And you’re like, ‘What?? Okay…can I have the dollar now?’ Moving on. It’s weird,” Tatum recalled.<\/p>\n While it was just a short detour on Tatum’s road to fame, his job as a stripper ended up being a pretty important part of his journey as it helped inspire the Magic Mike<\/em> franchise.<\/p>\n “I did do it for about eight months of my life, which is a relatively short period of time. It’s not like I made a career out of it or anything,” he told The Aquarian<\/a> back in 2012 before the first film debuted.<\/p>\n He continued, “This movie is really a bit of an explanation of my brief experience in that world. I represented a new generation of strippers where it was no longer about the long hair and all that, but about hip-hop and kinda doing your own thing.”<\/p>\n You can hear all that Channing had to say on The Drew Barrymore<\/a> Show<\/em> below.<\/p>\n This story was originally published by Parade<\/a> on Jan 24, 2026, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n