14 unusual celebrity facts you won't believe are real – including Channing Tatum's X-rated job and Rihanna's 'military past'

Starring in Magic Mike hit a little closer to home for Channing Tatum than most people realised, as the actor once worked as a professional stripper. "I actually stripped for real in Florida," he shared in an interview on The Drew Barrymore Show. 

"Back then it was... It's just a whole different thing. It's not the greatest world. It is so misogynistic. If anything, you're kind of, almost like it's a clown show." He got his big break in 2006’s Step Up, and never looked back. 

The legendary actor was working as a carpenter when he accidentally auditioned for the role of Han Solo in Star Wars, the film that launched him to superstardom in 1977. 

He had struggled to land acting jobs for 15 years and worked by day as a carpenter to put food on the table for his family. 

One day, Harrison was doing some carpentry work for director Francis Ford Coppola at his home, where George Lucas was also holding auditions for Star Wars, and stepped in to help read with the other actors.

"I was there in my carpenter belt...with a broom in my hand, not a movie star, but like Richard Dreyfuss," he recounted on the Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast. "I thought I was doing them a favour…and then they gave me the part."

The acclaimed actor was raised in the notorious Children of God cult – known for inflicting child abuse – alongside his four siblings for several years before his parents finally understood the dangers of the movement and escaped.

"I think my parents thought they’d found a community that shared their ideals," Joaquin told Playboy. 

"Cults rarely advertise themselves as such. It’s usually someone saying, ‘We’re like-minded people. This is a community,’ but I think the moment my parents realised there was something more to it, they got out."

Jack Black's mother, Judith Love Cohen, was an aerospace engineer who helped design the Abort Guidance System that saved the Apollo 13 astronauts after their spacecraft suffered an explosion in 1970. 

Judith was so dedicated to her work that on the day Jack was born in 1969, she took a problem she was working on to the hospital and solved it while in labour. "She actually went to her office on the day that Jack was born," recalled her son, Neil Siegel. 

"When it was time to go to the hospital, she took with her a computer printout of the problem she was working on. Later that day, she called her boss and told him that she had solved the problem. And…oh, yes, the baby was born, too."

The Australian actress had a brush with death when a stunt went wrong on the set of the 2013 film Now You See Me. 

Isla was performing a stunt that involved being shackled inside a water tank; when she realised she was really stuck, the star tried to hit the kill switch that would empty the tank, but couldn't reach it.

She was forced to bang on the glass for help, but the crew thought she was still acting. "They had a guy who was off-camera, but he was a long way away with a can of oxygen," she revealed to Rotten Tomatoes. 

"By the time I realised I couldn't get up and beckoned for him, I realised that I had run out of air. Luckily, I managed to get free and stay level-headed and got out before it went even more horribly wrong."

Jackie has suffered more than his fair share of injuries due to his insistence on doing his own stunts. However, one stunt in particular on the set of Armour of God in 1986 almost ended the legendary actor's life altogether. 

While jumping from branch to branch for a shot, the branch snapped and sent him plummeting to the ground, leading to a partial skull collapse and a piece of bone being lodged in his brain. Thankfully, Jackie made a full recovery and continued to fearlessly perform stunts for decades to come.

Barbra couldn’t bear the thought of being without her beloved dog, Samantha, and had cells taken from the pooch’s body before she died in 2017 with the intention of cloning her. 

The singer ended up cloning her twice into puppies Violet and Scarlett, who she revealed had entirely different personalities than her beloved dog.

“It was easier to let Sammie go if I knew I could keep some part of her alive, something that came from her DNA," she told The New York Times. “One of the reasons I chose cloning was because I couldn’t find another curly-haired Coton.”

"It’s a bit overwhelming. But we love them so much. Each puppy is unique and has her own personality. You can clone the look of a dog, but you can’t clone the soul. Still, every time I look at their faces, I think of my Samantha…and smile.”

The British actor was filming the BBC miniseries To the Ends of the Earth in 2004 in South Africa when he decided to go diving with friends on a day off. On their way home, the tyre on their car blew, leaving the group stranded and vulnerable to attack.

A troop of armed men proceeded to rob them, before tying them up, driving them to another location, dumping them out of the car and taking their belongings. Luckily, a kind stranger brought them to safety, and they were able to recover from the traumatic experience.

"It gave me a sense of time, but not necessarily a good one,” he told Variety. “It made me impatient to live a life less ordinary, and I’m still dealing with that impatience. It made me go, ‘Oh, right, yeah, I could die at any moment.' I was throwing myself out of planes, taking all sorts of risks."

"I’ve looked over the edge; it’s made me comfortable with what lies beneath it," he added. "And I’ve accepted that that’s the end of all our stories." 

Natalie is not just an Oscar-winning actress; she's also a scholar, with her works being published in scientific journals. 

The first, “A Simple Method to Demonstrate the Enzymatic Production of Hydrogen from Sugar”, she wrote in high school and published in the Journal of Chemical Education with two co-authors. 

Her second, entitled "Frontal Lobe Activation During Object Permanence", was published during her time at Harvard, where Natalie completed a Bachelor's degree in psychology.

The Cheers star's childhood was marred by the fact that his father, Charles Harrelson, was a hitman who was put behind bars in 1979 for the killing of federal judge John H. Wood Jr. 

Drug kingpin Jimmy Chagra had paid Charles $250,000 to kill the judge who was set to oversee his case, but Charles was caught and thrown in prison. 

Years later, Woody went all the way to the Supreme Court to appeal for his father's release, but this was denied, and Charles passed away in prison in 2007.

The Gossip Girl star was born to an incarcerated mother, Constance Meester – who had been sent to prison for her involvement in a drug smuggling ring – and was then raised by her grandparents. 

After breaking into Hollywood, Leighton sent money to her mother for several years to pay for her little brother's care, yet claimed that Constance was misusing the money to pay for beauty treatments and hair extensions. 

The actress eventually cut her mother off financially, and they no longer have a relationship.

Uma may be a master of the acting craft, but her late father, Robert Thurman, was a master of Tibetan Buddhism, and the foremost American expert on the religion. 

He was named by TIME as one of the most influential Americans in 1997, and co-created the nonprofit organisation Tibet House to help preserve Tibetan culture. 

Robert was even the first Westerner to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk by the Dalai Lama himself in 1964, but gave up his monkhood to marry and have children. 

Rebel was inspired to pursue an acting career after a trip to Mozambique in her gap year between high school and university went awry. "I got malaria really, really badly and I hallucinated that I was an actress and that I was really good," she told Today.

"I come back to Australia and said, 'Guys, I'll go to law school as well, but I think I've got to pursue acting too because I had the vision.'"

She continued: "People thought I was [unwell] when I got out of the hospital…[But] I saw it – I think I'm gonna be good." 

As it turns out, her vision was correct, and Rebel went on to star in hit films like Pitch Perfect, Bridesmaids, Jojo Rabbit and Senior Year. 

Rihanna wears many hats – musician, entrepreneur, billionaire businesswoman and mother of three – but in her past, she was also a member of the army cadets in her home country of Barbados. 

Barbadian singer Shontelle was her drill sergeant, and told the BBC about their time together in training. 

"It wasn't compulsory or anything. But picture me and Rihanna in combat boots and fatigues crawling through mud and things like that."