Alex Pettyfer on Channing Tatum: He was looking for an excuse to not like me
I absolutely loved Magic Mike XXL. It was surprisingly fun and wonderfully sex-positive and woman-positive. It was a sweet relief after the original Magic Mike took itself too seriously and tried to be a “drama” about strippers. Another reason why I loved the sequel? Because there was no Alex Pettyfer. Pettyfer has a bad reputation around Hollywood for being a douchebag, a psycho, an unprofessional diva and a tantrum-prone “bad boy.” Like, I think the kid is physically attractive, but the personality is lacking, and has been lacking for as long as he’s had “buzz” (going on four years now). It was a poorly-kept secret that Pettyfer and Channing Tatum had some major boy-beefs with each other on and off the set of Magic Mike. And now Pettyfer is trying to set the record straight about the beef… by saying that yes, there was a beef and Channing bad-mouthed him because he was just so sensitive!
It’s no secret that Channing Tatum and Alex Pettyfer aren’t BFFs. In a new interview with Bret Easton Ellis, however, Pettyfer admits he’s partially to blame for their long-rumored feud.
“It’s true,” Pettyfer said when asked if the two Magic Mike costars butted heads on set of the 2012 flick. “Because Channing Tatum does not like me — and for many reasons [and] many being my own fault.”
“I was scared to speak,” he recalled during the podcast interview. “I actually did my work and I sat in the corner and listened to music because I had been told anything I did was wrong by my reps. I was very insecure as a human being. That also gave me a bad rep because everyone was like, ‘Alex doesn’t speak because he thinks he’s better than everyone else.’ That’s not true. I was just generally nervous and scared to be myself. I was in character.” (As previously reported by Us Weekly, sources told Us at the time that Tatum “thought Alex was a diva on set” and that he acted like a “jerk.”)
Things got worse between the two hunks when Pettyfer failed to pay rent to Tatum’s friend, whose place he was staying in at the time. According to Pettyfer, he “couldn’t breathe” in the apartment because he was allergic to what he believes was mold and dust. After moving out of the unit, Pettyfer said he “forgot” to pay rent due to his cousin’s death.
“All of a sudden,” Pettyfer claims, “I got a very negative email from Channing — rightfully so — saying, ‘Don’t f—k my friends. You owe money. Pay the f—king money. Don’t be a clown.’ And I really took that the wrong way, which I shouldn’t have, and emailed him back and said, ‘I’m in a real negative headspace and can you respect me for a moment and blah, blah, blah.’ And I got hounded through this time of grieving for money. By the end of it. I just said, ‘F—k them, what is money when life is so much more. I’m not paying.’ And I should have just paid. I think he was looking for an excuse to not like me.”
Things didn’t improve after that, either. During Magic Mike reshoots, Pettyfer claims that Tatum told everyone that he didn’t like him. “What Channing says goes,” he told Ellis. “He’s a movie star. I made the poor decisions….Channing was actually an incredible influence on me because after this whole situation happened — this was kind of the end of my immaturity and all my experiences put into one. It was an incredible experience making Magic Mike. I wouldn’t replace it for anything.”
Yeah, I don’t think Alex has changed that much. I don’t think there was an “end” to his poor decisions. The text of the interview reads like one big humblebrag and plea for sympathy. Like, Channing Tatum didn’t like me because I was too Method and took my job too seriously. Channing bad-mouthed me to other actors because I didn’t want to be buddy-buddy with him. Channing was looking for an excuse to not like me!!! Channing didn’t like me because I was too overwhelmed by grief to pay my bills! Whatever, dude. Trying to villainize Channing, a guy who is truly beloved and respected in Hollywood, won’t get you very far.
Photos courtesy of ‘Magic Mike’, EW and WENN.
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