Jenna Dewan is opening up about what it’s like co-parenting with her ex-husband, Channing Tatum.
After first meeting on the set of Step Up in 2006, Jenna and Channing wound up dating and eventually tying the knot. They were married from 2009 until 2018, and during this time, they welcomed a daughter named Everly, who is now 10.
The couple finalized their divorce in 2019, with Channing revealing last year that they spent a “really long time” fighting off the urge to separate, even though they both “knew” that they’d “grown apart.”
“I think we told ourselves a story when we were young,” he said. “We just kept telling ourselves that story, no matter how blatantly life was telling us that we were so different.”
Channing — who is now engaged to Zoë Kravitz — went on to note that he and Jenna had different parenting styles.
“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,” he said.
Now Jenna is opening up about how she and Channing have navigated co-parenting as a divorced couple.
Speaking with Romper in a wide-ranging interview published this week, Jenna described co-parenting with Channing as a “journey” that “never ends.”
“It’s always a journey. It never ends. You just learn as you go and get better at certain things,” Jenna said, with the reporter noting that she was “careful” with her words.
Jenna continued, “For me, Evie will always be my top priority. I just continually put her first. That’s how I can manage all hard things.”
Getting candid about what it was like being away from Everly while the little girl was with Channing at the beginning of their co-parenting journey, Jenna said, "That was really tough ... it was definitely hard on [Everly] in the beginning too, but she’s gotten into a flow with that a lot more."
Jenna added that Everly "loves" and "really adores" her second child, Callum, whom she welcomed with fiancé Steve Kazee in March 2020. Jenna and Steve have been engaged for four years and are currently expecting another baby together.
Then Jenna reflected on what it was like being away from her daughter so soon after giving birth back in 2013. She welcomed Everly in London, where Channing was situated at the time filming a project, and therefore had to fly back and forth to Vancouver when she returned to work six weeks later.
“I don’t know if I’d say that was advisable. That was hard on me. It was hard to be thrown into call times and still be in the throes of postpartum. It was also my first baby,” she said.
“It was amazing, but it was also really difficult,” said Jenna, who previously discussed how hard she found balancing parenthood alongside her hectic work schedule.
“That’s why I was really spoiled with Callum, that whole year to do nothing,” she added.
Reflecting on what it was like to welcome Callum right when the coronavirus pandemic hit, Jenna said, “It was wild to be postpartum at the same time as all those changes in the world. Then also having all that downtime to really nest, but then also being afraid.”
And Jenna went on to discuss how things may be different giving birth to her third child at the age of 43. She said, “I’m not sure the body necessarily gets right back into action the way it did years ago. We’ll see. I’ll report back, but I do think there’s a bit of ignorance, this dancer in me that just says, ‘OK, well, you just get it done.’ I’ve recovered great every time, but I’m open to whatever happens.”
