In 2017, Roxane Gay, the bestselling author behind Bad Feminist and Hunger, revealed that she was working on a top-secret project with none other than Channing Tatum.
On this week's episode of The Advocate's podcast, LGBTQ&A, Gay shared new details about the project, including how the two met and what we can expect in the future.
[Click here to listen to the full podcast interview with Roxane Gay.]
Gay has a long, documented attraction to Tatum: his neck, his voice, his thighs, his dancing. And word got back to Tatum, after which he began to read her work and ultimately recommended her for a project he was working on.
When Gay initially heard about it from her agent, she thought it was a joke.
"She emailed me and was like, 'Sit down before you read the rest of this email.'" In five years, she had never said anything like that to me. So I was like, 'Oh, my God, she's leaving the business. I'm losing an agent.'" And she said, "Channing Tatum wants to work on a project with you.
"I thought my friends were playing a joke on me. And so, things proceeded, and then she gave me an address and said, 'Go here at such and such time.' And I said, 'Okay.' It was around my birthday, so I just thought, My friends are hilarious. They're putting together this surprise party, even though I hate surprise parties, and they're using this ruse of Channing Tatum. I went up into the hills, and he was standing on his front balcony. I was just like, 'Oh, I'm pregnant.' It was really good."
Details about the project are being kept under wraps, but Gay says it is neither a movie nor a TV show, though, "It might eventually be. But for now, it's not. It's really good."
Through it all, Gay's crush on Tatum, as well as Dwayne Johnson ("The Rock") remains strong. "It's absurd, how much of a crush I have on him, him and The Rock."
"I enjoy just a beefy man, like a very beefy man. I want to feel smaller. I want to feel like he could break me into multiple pieces. With men, I want them to be like the Hulk and throw me against the wall. I feel like The Rock could really do that. I watch his little workout videos on Instagram, and I just think, 'Yes, he could bench press me easy.'"
Click here to listen to the full LGBTQ&A podcast interview with Roxane Gay.