Before They Were Stars: Channing Tatum as a Stripper!

Until this year’s surprisingly good screen version of 21 Jump Street, Channing Tatum never displayed much in the way of acting talent, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he started off his career in a profession that perfectly suited him: stripping! And given that he starred this past weekend in Magic Mike, a new movie called about male strippers, this clip is currently being shown everywhere. In 1999, when he was only 18 years old, Channing got a job performing under the name “Chan Crawford” at a Chippendales-style club in Florida called Male Encounter. So here’s some old handheld footage of him stripping down to his socks and a thong for a group of horny squealing women.