Channing Tatum Reveals How He Got Beyonce to Perform on 'Lip Sync Battle'
The actor explained what it took for Queen Bey to appear on "Lip Sync Battle."
— -- When Beyonce stormed the stage on the season two premiere of "Lip Sync Battle," surprising viewers and Tatum's wife, Jenna Dewan Tatum alike, it went viral.
Queen Bey joined Channing Tatum onstage while he lip-synced her 2011 hit single "Run the World (Girls)."
Still, no one was more shocked that he pulled it off than Tatum himself. On Thursday's episode of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," the 35-year-old actor revealed how his collaboration with Bey happened.
"I had never met her before," Tatum told host Ellen DeGeneres. "I won't even tell you what I had to do to essentially get her assistant's phone number."
Tatum said when he got wind that his wife, whom he was competing against during the episode, planned to bring out Paula Abdul, he wanted to up the ante.
"I was like, 'Hmm, who can I bring out?' I know Beyonce's not gonna come, so I wanted to bring like a cardboard cutout of Beyonce out just to be funny," he explained. "Ultimately I ended up having to meet Beyonce doing Beyonce and that was definitely the most terrifying thing I've ever done."
On the Spike TV series, Tatum performed in full costume, complete with a blond wig, crop top and thigh-high boots.
Tatum compared meeting Beyonce, 34, to Kevin Spacey's character from the 1995 film, "The Usual Suspects" -- Keyser Söze.
"I don't know if you guys know who that is, but you know she exists, but you never see her until all of a sudden you're just like, 'It happened. Wait, that was her, right?'" And then you always know she's somewhere in the world that can reach out and touch you," he quipped.
Beyonce didn't stick around after the performance, Tatum revealed.
"I said 'Hi' and she goes, 'Hey, that was really funny. See ya!'" Tatum said with a laugh. "But she did text afterwards and she was like, "Hey, I would love to meet you guys and hang out when you're not looking like me and so terrifying."
Related Stories
ABC News Live