Well, well, well. Zoë Kravitz and Channing Tatum were spotted tootling around the East Village on a BMX bike this week, and I must confess: Tatum looks incredibly cool. Formerly the leading purveyor of tight white tanks and baggy, faded jeans, a look that delivered him to hunk status in the early 2010s and that he pretty much stuck with for the intervening decade, Tatum appears to have received a Dimes Square–style makeover courtesy of Kravitz. Gone are the rugged boots and tattered knee holes; in their place, a pair of high-top Converse and a faded graphic tee. Where a gelled-up mohawk once was, a shaved head resides. Is that a film camera strapped across his chest?! Tatum looks like the guy you made out with at China Chalet in 2019 who never texted you back. And you know what? It rules.
Before his skater makeover, Tatum was perhaps best known for always being shirtless. He made a movie about dogs called Dog. He wrote a book for his 7-year-old daughter. He pretended to read only the book’s sleeve to a bunch of stuffed animals while wearing nothing but an apron and fairy wings.
And then, by the hand of God, Kravitz plucked him up and cast him as a sinister tech mogul in her directorial debut, Pussy Island. It all began with a pair of Crocs, which he attempted to wear to his first meeting with Kravitz and which he was swiftly but politely informed he could not pull off. Throughout the course of their professional partnership and friendship (and potential flirtation), Kravitz seems to have been gently tugging Tatum into this decade without sacrificing too much of his core hunkiness. The result is an amalgam of all the things I have personally found sexy in my entire adult life — i.e., straight-leg jeans and Channing Tatum’s physique.
And it must be noted: Those two are looking pretty damn cute on that bike. Whether Kravitz is preening him to announce their new coupledom or simply doing a friend (and also the rest of us) a hot favor remains to be seen. In any case, Tatum 2.0 is a gift. Thanks, Zo!