Channing Tatum Fired Thandiwe Newton From ‘Magic Mike 3’ After Arguing About Will Smith’s Oscars Slap: Report

It really was The Slap seen and heard around the world, wasn’t it?! Wait. Was it? More than 5,000 miles away from Hollywood, an argument in London over Will Smith’s boorish behavior at the Oscars got so heated between Channing Tatum and Thandiwe Newton, it’s apparently cost Newton her role in the latest Magic Mike movie!

The Hollywood Reporter said Wednesday that Salma Hayek replaced Newton in the role for Magic Mike’s Last Dance, which began production in London a couple of weeks ago for HBO Max. The official statement from Warner Bros. claimed: “Thandiwe Newton has made the difficult decision to step away from the production of Warner Bros. Pictures’ Magic Mike’s Last Dance to deal with family matters.”

But The Sun in the UK dishes that witnesses working on the set in London not only saw Newton and Tatum get into a “tense exchange of words” over what went down at the Academy Awards, but also that Tatum had Newton removed from the production after it. The Sun also cited unnamed sources claiming Newton might sue the studio over her removal, but that her argument with the Magic Mike star/producer was so “unimaginably vicious” that her claims might be “untenable.”

The witness told The Sun: “They fell out over the debacle at The Oscars. I was on set. I watched her and watched him. They were in and out of the house where we were filming having this confrontation. It was a tense exchange of words, but suddenly it escalated – Channing got into this car and he disappeared. People looked at each other and thought, ‘Wait, we’re supposed to be filming’. After the row he just went, ‘I am not working with her anymore’. Him being a producer, it’s his movie, so she’s off the movie.”

But Newton’s camp denies that account, with her spokesperson telling Page Six today: “This report is completely inaccurate.”

The first two films in the franchise, Magic Mike and Magic Mike XXL, both did big box-office globally, raking in about $300 million. The films about male strippers, loosely based on Tatum’s own experience as an 18-year-old stripper in Tampa, also spun back into the real world with a “Magic Mike Live” production that’s hit Las Vegas and stages around the globe. Magic Mike’s Last Dance brings Steven Soderbergh back as director after he skipped XXL.

Newton, meanwhile, currently co-stars in the new Amazon Prime movie, All The Old Knives.