The actor Channing Tatum hates with a passion: “For many reasons”
Everyone has someone at work that they can’t stand.
It might be Steve in marketing who asks everyone if they’re having a beer afterwards, but then orders double vodkas each round for twice the price of everyone else’s drinks. It could be Claire, who works in HR, who asks people to sponsor her for literally everything, even if it’s just walking half a mile to somewhere she was going anyway. And if you’re Channing Tatum, then it’s another actor you starred with once in a film about strippers.
Back in the days of Magic Mike, the 2012 movie that told the tale of a college dropout who turns to stripping to make a buck or two, Tatum was not happy about one of the casting decisions made by the film’s director, Steven Soderbergh. The film was loosely based on Tatum’s own experiences, and as a result, he was pretty involved in who did what.
And he had severe reservations about the inclusion of British actor and former model Alex Pettyfer, against Soderbergh’s wishes, who wanted him cast in the film. He was someone who had just started to land some lead roles in the business after a succession of smaller films and was coming off the back of the sci-fi action movie I am Number Four the previous year, which had done very decent numbers at the box office. But there were already stories about his supposed behaviour on set.
As Pettyfer told Bret Easton Ellis on his podcast: “Channing Tatum does not like me. For many reasons. Many being my own fault… I had a very negative past relating to the things that I had done on movies and promotion of movies. And Channing Tatum is an extraordinarily smart businessman… I think he probably didn’t want to get into a conflict with Steven (Soderberg) and so I was cast.”
And it would appear that things went downhill from there, not just while filming the movie, when Pettyfer said he “didn’t speak to anyone” but afterwards too. Pettyfer rented a flat from a friend of Tatum’s, but moved out due to alleged mould, refusing to pay around four months of rent that was owing.
Pettyfer’s cousin then sadly died, and the actor forgot about the outstanding money, leading Tatum to send an emailed message that Pettyfer says rightly stated: “Don’t f— my friends. You owe money. Pay the f—ing money. Don’t be a clown.”
Although he says he was originally respectful in his communication back, he then said he felt he was being ‘hounded’ for the rent money, and added: “By the end of it I just basically said, ‘F— them… ‘I’m not dealing with this, and I’m not paying.’”
Although he added, “I should have just paid. I think he was looking for an excuse to not like me.”
The saga led to Pettyfer not being asked to appear in the sequel to the movie, the franchise of which has gone on to be a global phenomenon with several movies, a stage show and a tour. Pettyfer, for his part, though, doesn’t seem to hold too much of a grudge, saying: “What Channing says goes, because he’s a movie star. He’s incredible. He’s done so well for himself.”
Pettyfer hasn’t had what might be considered a hit in the decade since, although he did appear in Guy Ritchie’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare last year alongside Henry Cavill. Tatum, on the other hand, has another big film on his hands in the form of Roofman, the action comedy about a man hiding out in a toy shop after escaping prison that’s based on a real-life story.
