Channing Tatum was accused of stealing his stripper moves for Magic Mike from two of his former dancing co-workers, Thomas “Awesome” Austin and London Steele. They claimed that Channing only stripped for four months and that he stole their stories for his movie. The strippers are upset that Channing didn’t involve either of them in the flick as consultants or otherwise. They’ve also claimed that he stole one of their signature moves, called the Hot Seat.
Now, Channing is defending himself against the accusations, saying, “Those guys have been trying to make money off of me since I got into this business.”
He went on to say, “Look, there’s nothing that’s factual in this whole movie other than that I was an 18-year-old kid and went into this world and I dropped out of college from playing football and was living on my sister’s couch. There’s not one character that I took from my real life; this is just a world that I went into, and I had a perspective on. And we created everything from a fictional place.”
He added, “I don’t want to say anything bad about them because they’re part of the reason why I think this world is so interesting. They’re very interesting, intriguing and bizarre characters, and I’m thankful for weird people out there. They’re some of the most creative people.”
