Channing Tatum shows off his stripper moves on ‘SNL’ [Video]
Channing Tatum is not shy about admitting his job before becoming an actor was a male stripper.
As host of Saturday Night Live on Saturday, The Vow actor, 31, got in touch with his old stripper moves for his opening monologue.
“It is such an honor to be on this stage, especially considering my first job in show business was as a male stripper,” he began. “That may sound like a joke, but it’s true: I really was a stripper for a year before becoming an actor.”
“I’m not ashamed of my past. I loved stripping. I loved my customers.”
Channing then realized some of his customers were in the audience. As a way to jog their memories, he performed a dance.
Channing’s stripper moves on the late-night sketch comedy show may have had women swooning, and his wife of nearly three years, Jenna Dewan, agrees he is “amazing.” “He’s a great stripper” she previously said. "I should ask for more [private dances]."
His past didn’t just inspire an SNL skit, it also inspired a movie. Magic Mike, also starring Alex Pettyfer and Matthew McConaughey, whom Channing also impersonated on SNL, is inspired by Channing’s stripper past and hits theaters this summer. He recently explained that he didn’t think director Steven Soderbergh was serious about making a film about his stripper past.
“We were sitting over a beer and I told him that I was a stripper for eight months when I was nineteen,” Tatum recently said during a press conference for his film Haywire, according to Screen Rant. “And he said that would be a great movie. And I said, ‘well I want to make a movie out of it.’ And he’s said, ‘you should write it.’ And I’m like, ‘yeah Soderbergh, Steven Soderbergh I’ll go write that.’ Cut to three or four months later, I read an interview where he said that he would be willing to direct. I called him up and said, ‘how much bullshit is in this article?’ He was like, ‘I’m as serious as bone’s spur, we should sit down.’ And we sat down… And we decided to do it.”