In an unlikely collaboration, actor and film producer, Channing Tatum is teaming up with writer and professor, Roxane Gay to write a new romance novel. The new work is set to centre two people who make a pact to get married after 40, if romance with someone else hasn’t already found them.
Channing Tatum who made his film début in Coach Carter and had his breakthrough with comedy film, She’s the Man, inspired by William Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night, is perhaps best known for the Magic Mike film franchise, based on his own experiences as a stripper.
Roxane Gay is a writer and social commentator whose works include the New York Times best-selling easy collection Bad Feminist (2014), short story collections Ayiti (2011) and Difficult Women (2017), the novel An Untamed State (2014), and the memoir Hunger (2017). Gay is the Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University, and she is a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times, founder of Tiny Hardcore Press, essays editor for The Rumpus, and the editor for Gay Mag (founded in partnership with Medium). Tatum and Gay are co-writing a romance novel which promises to be “very sexy”, Gay says.
Speaking to singer, Dua Lipa, on the Service95 podcast, Roxane Gay explained how the collaboration had come about “in the most ridiculous way.”
“A journalist asked him [Channing] if he knew that there was this writer who had a crush on him and wrote a book called Bad Feminist. And he was like, ‘Oh, I haven’t heard of it, but I’ll look into it.’”
“And then he did. And then someone approached him about doing a book project,” she continued, “and he was like, ‘Yes, I would love to, if I can co-write it with this person.’”
The pair’s relationship reportedly took off from there, with plans to co-write a romance novel quickly forming.
Teasing the book, Roxane Gay said: It’s very sexy. Lots and lots of sex.”
Adding in an interview for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert last year that the book’s plot is “actually grounded in reality.
“You know how so many people make these little pacts? Like, ‘If we both turn 40 and we’re still single let’s get married.’ So, they actually get married and then they fall in love afterwards.”
Roxane Gay and Channing Tatum’s romance novel has yet to be given a set publication date or title, however, there are rumours of tentative plans for a 2027 release.
