Strippers Yesterday. Celebrities Today.
 

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Widely publicized for his stripper past, Channing Tatum produced a semiautobiographical movie with Steven Soderbergh about his stripper alter ego Magic Mike. In the spirit of the movie, The Daily Beast made a list of celebrities who started out as strippers before hitting the big time.

Carmen Electra
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Robert Mora / Getty Images

Before running on the beaches of So-Cal in slow motion, Baywatch starlet Carmen Electra made money showing off what her mama gave her (er, what plastic surgeons gave her) on a smaller scale: in strip clubs. She even has her own line of stripper poles, which apparently is a hot trend?Playboy playmate Kendra Wilkinson also created her own stripper pole accessory.

Javier Bardem
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Everett Collection

No Country for Old Men star Javier Bardem worked a number of odd jobs before landing roles on the big screen. As a joke, Bardem did a striptease for some friends at a bar, but when someone in the business spotted his moves, he was hired as a bona-fide stripper the next day. ?I was so bad,? he has said. ?I did it to ?Leave Your Hat On,? and I had to get my mother and sister to cheer me on.? Needless to say, Bardem quickly turned in his birthday suit for serious roles and a life with fellow actor Penelope Cruz.

Eve
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Carlo Allegri / AP Photo

A few surprising things about the rapper Eve: she?s good buddies with Sean Penn, as proved when he offered to bail her out for a DUI. Oh, and she was an exotic dancer. The paw-print tatted star worked as a stripper for ?about a month,? she told Rolling Stone. ?Rappers talk about drug dealing before they made it and it?s not a big thing, but me stripping is?? She added, ?It was depressing?a lot of those girls have three or four kids. I?d sit there and be like, ?Eve, you don?t belong here, this is not your world.??

Brad Pitt
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Back in his college days at the University of Missouri, Brad Pitt was part of an all male Chippendales-esque club, the Dancing Bares. The group specialized in stripping down and performing for female students on their birthdays. Former Bares member and Pitt fraternity brother Thomas Whelihan said, ?When a girl from one of our sister sororities turned 21, the Bares would put her in a chair and come out butt-naked with pillowcases on their heads and do a choreographed dance for her.? Yes, please.

Nadya ?Octomom? Suleman
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Nigel Patrick, Splash News / Newscom

Mother of 14 and Angelina Jolie enthusiast Nadya Suleman was coy about her stripper experience during a radio interview. ?The only thing I?m going to say is we all have a past,? she said. But she did indeed once take to the pole, professionally speaking, playing up her similarity to a certain Mr. and Mrs. Smith star and, appropriately, dubbing herself ?Angelina.?

this is a good thread, i bet it took time to research it!