Channing Tatum Says His Divorce from Jenna Dewan Was 'Super Scary and Terrifying' at First

Tim P. Whitby/Getty Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan in 2015

Channing Tatum is reflecting on his personal growth since his divorce from Jenna Dewan.

In a cover interview for Vanity Fair's February 2023 issue, the 42-year-old Magic Mike's Last Dance star said of his divorce from Dewan, 42, "In the beginning, it was super scary and terrifying."

"Your life just turns on its axis. This whole plan that you had literally just turns into sand and goes through your fingers and you're just like, 'Oh, s---. What now?' " he said.

However, the actor noted, "It was probably exactly what I needed."

"I don't think I would've ever done the work, I think, on myself in the way that I had to do the work on myself to really try to figure out what next," Tatum explained.

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Mario Sorrenti/Vanity Fair Channing Tatum on the cover of Vanity Fair's February 2023 issue

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That work, Tatum said, "started with" 9-year-old daughter Everly — his only child, whom he shares with Dewan and whom his Sparkella children's book series was inspired by.

"I just dropped everything and just focused on her," he told the magazine of his relationship with Everly. "And it was truly the best possible thing that I ever could have done. Because in the alone time that I have with just me and her, we've become best friends."

Elsewhere in his cover interview, Tatum said he and Dewan, who announced their split in April 2018 after nearly nine years of marriage and finalized their divorce in November 2019, "fought for [their marriage] for a really long time, even though we both sort of knew that we had sort of grown apart."

"I think we told ourselves a story when we were young, and we just kept telling ourselves that story, no matter how blatantly life was telling us that we were so different," he told the outlet.

"But when you're actually parents, you really understand differences between the two of you," Tatum added. "Because it is screaming at you all day long. How you parent differently, how you look at the world, how you go through the world."

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Tatum — who is currently dating Zoë Kravitz — also admitted that he does not know "if I'm ever going to get married again."

"Relationships are hard for me," he told VF, after discussing how he and Kravitz, 34, met over negotiations for the actor to appear in her upcoming directorial debut Pussy Island.

"Even though I am a bit of a monogamist," Tatum explained. "In business, I have no real fear of anything being destroyed. But heart things, when it comes to people I love, I have a really hard time."

"I end up trying too hard, you know?" he added.

Magic Mike's Last Dance is in theaters Feb. 10.