Jenna Dewan and Channing Tatum shocked fans when they announced their split a couple months ago. Now, Dewan has spoken out about the marriage as well as the new direction she’s heading in life. She explained that the “The moves I’m making are completely not related to my marriage or separation, interestingly enough. I was always very happy being a wife.”
Dewan notes that new questions started coming up for her:
“‘Who are you? What do you want to give to the world? What excites you?’ Those feelings started bubbling up for me, naturally…so I really wanted to expand my life, and myself. And that was my journey, no one else’s. I feel a sense of joy and freedom and excitement, truly, about a new chapter in my life. And I have no attachments to how that’s going to look, or what that’s going to be. I feel really open, and I feel hopeful.”
Dewan and Tatum met on the set of Step Up in 2005 and were married in 2009.
They share one child together, a daughter, Everly. Dewan also recently explained that her career expanded pretty dramatically after their daughter was born. She explained that she had a certain amount of understandable anxiety about where her next role would come from, and after her daughter was born she no longer felt that in the same way. Ultimately it ended up changing her work experience in a good way.
“Whether you try and hide it or not, most actresses and actors have a certain sense of anxious desperation about what their next job is. As soon as I had Everly, it went away. I had this freedom of, ‘Well, I could never work another day in my life, and I have a purpose.’ The irony is, that deep surrender brought so much opportunity and projects my way.”
Tatum has called Dewan a “warrior” of a mother and said he loves being a dad. The two are reportedly committed to co-parenting to the best of their abilities post-split.