Alas, Mike couldn't wave his magic wand and make any divorce drama disappear.
Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan were married for almost nine years before their April 2018 separation announcement shocked fans who'd been invested in the actors' togetherness since they fell in love on the set of 2006's Step Up.
The parents of now-12-year-old daughter Everly softened the blow with an extremely amicable-sounding statement, noting there were "no secrets nor salacious events" at the root of their decision.
They called love "a beautiful adventure" that was taking them on different paths and described themselves as "just two best-friends realizing it's time to take some space and help each other live the most joyous, fulfilled lives as possible."
But while there was joy and fulfillment waiting in the near future for both, Dewan having since welcomed two children with fiancé Steve Kazee, the exes didn't exactly realize their initial stated intention to make it easy for the other to move on.
Though their divorce was finalized in November 2019, rendering each star legally single, the specifics of the Dewan-Tatum split took five more years to hammer out as the pair continued to tangle over money.
Namely, it was how much Dewan felt she was due from the XXL-size success of Magic Mike—inspired by Tatum's own brief experience working as a stripper before his career took off—that was holding up the proceedings.
Court documents filed by Dewan's lawyers in April 2024 stated that Tatum "got his big break" from the 2012 film, "which, along with the underlying intellectual property, was developed and co-financed by Channing during marriage with community effort and marital funds."
In addition to two sequels, the film's success spawned further business opportunities for Tatum, according to the filing, hence Dewan was seeking a larger cut from the "multi-million cultural phenomenon."
Details were not made public when a judge signed off on their divorce settlement in September 2024, but a Nov. 26 court filing obtained by E! News showed that Dewan and Tatum waived spousal support, agreed to deal with custody issues privately, and will be getting half of each other's SAG-Producers Pension Plan benefits earned during their marriage.
A marriage that, at least from the outside, seemed to be chugging along, right up until it veered off-track.
In an interview published two months before she and Tatum revealed they had separated, Dewan told Health, "When people say you guys have such a perfect life, I want to scream and tell them no one's perfect. I think there are such things as great fits. It is a great fit as long as you are growing together, and I think up until this point we've really grown together."
She explained, "I think a couple needs to be conscious and to want to do the work and be willing to look at the parts of you that need work. Both of us have been pretty aware and willing to do that. We've always had the same values. But we're not perfect! Are you kidding? We fight like other couples, we disagree about things, we have days where we don't really like each other."
And perhaps Dewan, who went on to file for divorce in October 2018, still didn't know at the time that the end of their marriage was imminent.
“Jenna and I are good now, but it was a painful break to have that fall apart, especially being so young,” Tatum—who is dating Inka Williams following high-profile romances with Jessie J and Zoë Kravitz—told Variety over the summer. "We tried to keep it together, tried for a year and a half, but we knew it was..."
After trailing off, he added, "It’s in the past. But it’s really tough not to have your daughter half the time. I wish I could just have her all the time.”
Taking stock of how much she'd learned about herself "in 2024, especially," Dewan wrote in an InStyle essay published Jan. 22, “Sometimes things break because you don’t fit in that vessel anymore, and that’s okay.”
She continued, "I am so grateful for my family, the love and presence of my partner, Steve, and the adventures we will have this year. I see some travel, lots of family laughs, and, most importantly, maybe a wedding finally!"
But why did it take so much time for Dewan and Tatum to step up and get this deal done? Read on for more details about the divorce that kept the exes out of sync for so long:
Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan—who welcomed daughter Everly on May 31, 2013—were declared legally separated in 2019 but went on to clash over financial matters.
In April 2024, Dewan filed documents requesting that she and Tatum "testify regarding all issues related to the parties’ marriage including business and financial activities."
She also submitted a preliminary exhibit list that requests personal and corporate tax returns and other financial documents, including those regarding profits from the Magic Mike franchise.
The Rookie actress stated in the filing that they acquired the Magic Mike intellectual property together. She accused Tatum of putting its earnings into "an irrevocable trust" and transferred licensing rights to a third party without telling her, People reported, citing court documents.
Tatum disputed her claim in his own filing, obtained by E! News.
"The Magic Mike intellectual property was created during marriage and various entities that relate to the intellectual property were created during marriage and after separation," the documents stated. "[Tatum] has expended extensive efforts since separation towards the enhancement of the Magic Mike intellectual property and related entities, which [he] contends give rise to his separate property interest therein."
The court, his attorney noted in the filing, "will need to allocate the community interest and [Tatum's] separate property interest in the intellectual property and related entities in consideration of [his] post-separation efforts."
Dewan included in her preliminary witness list several people who worked on the Magic Mike trilogy with Tatum, including director Steven Soderbergh and producers Nick Wechsler and Peter Kiernan.
In his own preliminary witness list, filed in court one day after Dewan submitted her documents and also obtained by E! News, Tatum included his ex-wife's fiancé Steve Kazee.
After Dewan accused her ex of hiding part of his earnings, Tatum—who was engaged to Zoë Kravitz at the time—filed new documents in May 2024 alleging her accusations were false.
"I have never denied Petitioner her share of any community assets or income," he said. "I have always agreed for Petitioner to have an interest in the Magic Mike intellectual property and related entities."
He continued, "During our marriage, Petitioner had equal access to our business managers and financial records. We communicated about our work and various projects on a regular basis. Since our separation, Petitioner has had complete access to all our financial records for all activities during our marriage and since separation."
The documents also argued that Jenna's petition was intended to further hold up their divorce.
"It is designed to delay the processing of the case and increase the expense of litigation and will not, in any way, promote 'early resolution by settlement,'" the documents argued, "in a case where five separate mediation sessions have resulted in Petitioner's simply ignoring a tendered proposed judgment for months."
Tatum and Dewan finalized their divorce in September 2024 after a six-year long battle.
Both parties mutually agreed to waive spousal support and also agreed that should they need to work out any future disagreements over custody regarding daughter Everly, they would do so privately with a judge.
In reaching the agreement, the couple avoided a trial that was set for December 2024.
A November 2025 court filing showed that the actors will receive 50 percent of each other's retirement benefits earned during their marriage, as determined under the Screen Actors Guild-Producers Pension Plan for Motion Picture Actors.