Alex Pettyfer has opened up about the feud he had with Channing Tatum.
The pair starred together in Magic Mike but never warmed to each other on set and their relationship has gone from bad to worse since then. Speaking on Bret Easton Ellis' podcast, Pettyfer reveals all the details about the feud and his past bad behaviour.
The actor explained that he was approached by Steven Soderbergh to star in Magic Mike after the director heard of his bad boy behaviour. Although Soderbergh wanted to cast him, Tatum (who was a producer and investor in the project) apparently saw Pettyfer as a big risk.
"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," Pettyfer says. "I think he probably didn't want to get into a conflict with Steven and so I was cast."
Perhaps sensing Tatum's dislike of him, Pettyfer was standoffish on set.
"I didn't speak on the movie [set]. I was scared to speak," he says. "I did my work and then I sat in the corner and listened to music because I'd been told that anything I do was wrong by my reps and I was very insecure as a human being. That also gave me a bad rep because they said, 'Oh Alex thinks he's f—ing better than everybody else because he doesn't speak to anyone.' And that's not true. I was genuinely nervous and scared to be myself."
After filming wrapped, Pettyfer moved to New York and rented an apartment owned by a friend of Tatum's. But he left shortly after moving in, claiming that terrible mold and dust allergies made it too difficult for him to breathe. By breaking the lease he was supposed to pay four months rent but he didn't. The actor admits now that this was a mistake.
Pettyfer's cousin died suddenly after he had moved out of the apartment and he forgot to pay the rent owed to Tatum's friend. He adds: "I all of a sudden got a very negative email from Channing, rightfully so, saying, 'Don't f— my friends. You owe money. Pay the f—ing money. Don't be a clown.'"
He says he initially responded with an email saying something to the effect of "I'm in a very negative situation, negative head space, can you respect me for a minute?" But after getting repeatedly "hounded" for rent money while he was grieving for his cousin, Pettyfer said he ultimately decided not to pay them.
"By the end of it I just basically said, 'F— them. What is money when life is so much more?’ and, ‘I’m not dealing with this, and I’m not paying,' " Pettyfer says. "I should have just paid. I think he was looking for an excuse to not like me."
When Pettyfer turned up for Magic Mike re-shoots, the tide had turned against him.
"[Channing] had already told everyone he didn't like me," he explains. "And what Channing says goes because he's a movie star. He's incredible. He's done so well for himself."
While Pettyfer didn't comment on what happened with his character not returning to Magic Mike XXL, one can imagine that Tatum decided it would be easier not to bring Pettyfer's character back for the sequel.
Via THR