Will Parfitt, a 36-year-old from Croydon who bears a striking resemblance to Hollywood actor Channing Tatum, has revealed that Tatum is aware of his lookalike. During a red-carpet interview, a South American reporter showed Tatum a picture of Parfitt. "He recognised me from the photo. He was like, 'Yeah, I've seen him,'" Parfitt recalled. The pair have never met, but Parfitt hasn't ruled out a future encounter, joking, "How about Magic Mike Four? You never know."
From Night Out to Stripper Career
Parfitt's journey began on a boozy night out in Melbourne, where a club promoter dubbed him "Channing Tatum's English cousin." What started as a joke led to an introduction to the people behind the stripper troupe Magic Men. Parfitt, who had moved to Australia around 13 years ago on a working holiday visa, was asked if he would consider topless waitering. "I was like 'Yeah, why not? I'll give it a try,'" he said.
At the time, Magic Men was a small production, performing for audiences of just 50 or 60 people. "We used to literally do the show for like 50, 60 people that would come and watch the show. It was literally just like one guy on stage with no visuals, no pyrotechnics, no nothing, no backup dancers."
Social Media Fame and Global Success
When Covid hit and Melbourne went into lockdown, Parfitt turned to TikTok, creating transition videos that capitalised on his resemblance to the Step Up star. "The Channing comments obviously helped, and then it just went crazy." When Melbourne reopened, his online fame had followed him into the real world, with lines of people coming to see him at shows across Australia.
Magic Men has since sold more than a million tickets worldwide, with performances in North America, South America, and Scandinavia. "Now we're doing full arenas, and we did our biggest show last year in Norway. It was 6,000 people." Parfitt is keen to dispel the perception that Magic Men is simply a strip club act. "It’s still raunchy and sexy, but we have professional dancers as well. It’s a full show, pyrotechnics. We have visuals. We have an unreal playlist of music that they’re going to feel like they’re at a concert as well as in a show."
Unexpected Encounters and Upcoming UK Tour
Parfitt's social media fame has also brought bizarre experiences. Fake accounts pretending to be him have convinced women they are in relationships with him. At a recent show in New York, one woman waited outside for 12 hours after being told by a fake account to meet him. In Germany, an angry victim punched Parfitt in the face. "She'd been speaking to a fake account who'd taken all of her money, and she still was convinced it was me. She just socked me in the face in front of everyone."
Beyond the chaos, Parfitt says many women attend the shows to escape everyday pressures. "There are actually so many women who come to our show who have got stressful things going on in their lives. But they can just come to our show, and literally as soon as they walk through the door for those two, three hours, they can just forget about everything and just go crazy."
The Magic Men UK tour will take place throughout October, with stops in Liverpool, Brighton, Llandudno, Portsmouth, Bournemouth, Bradford, Glasgow, Hastings, Middlesbrough, Newcastle and Swansea, before wrapping up in Croydon on October 31. The Croydon date is special for Parfitt, as the venue is somewhere he used to visit as a child. "I used to go there with my nan and grandad to watch plays back in the day." Now he's returning to the same theatre, only this time, he'll be the one on stage.
