Channing Tatum is taking a step up back and reflecting on his former relationship with Jenna Dewan.
"We fought for it for a really long time," the Magic Mike star, 42, told Vanity Fair for its February cover story, "even though we both sort of knew that we had sort of grown apart."
After meeting on the set of their 2006 movie Step Up, Tatum and Dewan tied the knot in 2009 and welcomed daughter Everly in 2013. But in 2018, the pair announced their decision to separate and filed for divorce later that year. A judge signed off on the dissolution of their marriage in 2019.
"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," Tatum continued. "But when you're actually parents, you really understand differences between the two of you. 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."
As the Lost City actor noted, navigating this new chapter wasn't easy. "In the beginning, it was super scary and terrifying," he explained of the early days following his and Dewan's separation. "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--t. What now?'"
However, Tatum seemed to suggest that everything worked out for the best. "It was probably exactly what I needed," he added. "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. And really, it just started with my daughter. I just dropped everything and just focused on her. 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."
Dewan previously opened up about her and Tatum's breakup in her 2019 book Gracefully You: Finding Beauty and Balance in the Everyday.
"In the beginning of my separation, it felt as though I were in a dark closet, desperately trying to find the light or the way out," the former World of Dance host, 42, wrote. "I was in a state of shock. One week I'd be doing really well and the next I was slammed with a whole new slew of emotions. The rumor mill was churning out story after story. There were many times I hid under the covers, wondering what was next."
She continued, "The pain hit me like a tumbling avalanche. I was completely overcome with fear and sadness. It took many moments of sitting alone with my grief to force me into surrendering to my roller coaster of a situation."
However, both she and Tatum have found love again. Dewan is engaged to Steve Kazee, with whom she shares son 2-year-old son Callum. As for Tatum, he and Jessie J split in 2020 after about two years of dating, and he's now in a relationship with Zoë Kravitz.
But don't expect wedding bells to be ringing any time soon. As the 21 Jump Street alum told Vanity Fair, "I don't know if I'm ever going to get married again."