CHANNING TATUM ADMITS TO PAST DRUG USE AS HE COVERS THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER FOR NOV ISSUE 2014

What many people don't know, however, is what went down behind the scenes when the movie star was an exotic dancer in Florida. "I wouldn't say I was losing myself in drugs because I wasn't doing anything habitually," he recalls in the Nov. 14 issue of The Hollywood Reporter. "Just experimenting. Experimenting, I would say. Never the big ones—crack or heroin. I never OD'd or anything. Never."

What about cocaine? "Maybe a couple times, but that was later," the Foxcatcher star, 34 says. "Drinking was probably the biggest [thing]. I didn't look at drinking as a problem. It wasn't at that point, and I still don't think it's a problem. But at that time in my life, it was, 'Let's go out and have a great time.'"

In a GQ's June 2014 cover story, Tatum called himself a "functioning alcoholic." Clarifying his comments to THR, the actor says, "It was something said that wasn't meant to be factual. It was said in context with the glutton side of myself. I'm constantly a flip-and-flop of extremes. I take care of it, to an extent—and then I kind of knock it all down and destroy the sand castle. All I meant was that I do things in extreme."

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But, back to the stripping. How much did Tatum make in a typical night? "Not as much as you think," the Magic Mike: XXL star admits. "On a good night, 150 bucks. On a bad night, 70 bucks—even 50 at times."

The sequel to 2012's Magic Mike focuses on a road trip through the South toward a stripper convention, something Tatum experienced firsthand in the late '90s. "I have no idea why it's called a convention," he says. "The 'convention' was not strippers peddling stripper technology or anything like that. It was just a big show with 50 to 70 strippers and 2,000 to 3,000 women. It was crazy. They attacked me every night."

Really weird, Tatum adds. One time, while he was giving a woman a lap dance, "The lady goes, 'Oh my God! Look at you! You remind me of my nephew!'—and then grabs me. It hit me like a hand grenade. It was like tick, tick, tick, boom: She's grabbing my butt and saying, 'You remind me of my nephew.'"