Salma Hayek Pinault Says One ‘Magic Mike’ Lap Dance ‘Nearly Killed’ Her

Jimmy Kimmel shared a clip from Magic Mike’s Last Dance, which hits theaters on February 10, in which Hayek Pinault’s Maxandra Mendoza receives a five-minute lap dance from Tatum’s titular Mike, or as Kimmel cheekily put it, Mike’s “Channing all over your Tatum.” Hayek Pinault described the choreography for the film as “challenging and technical” and claimed that the dangerous lap dance did not make it into the final cut of the movie. “There’s one part that’s not in it where I’m upside down, and my legs had to be somewhere. But upside down, one loses sense of direction, and I didn’t do what I was supposed to do, so in the rehearsal, I went like, head down—almost hit my head,” she said.

Matters were made worse because Hayek Pinault couldn’t remember whether or not she was wearing underwear during the scene. “[Tatum] held on to my pants, but I was really concerned because my pants were going away, and I couldn’t remember if I had underwear or not in this moment,” she said. “So instead of putting my hands to protect my head, I just held on to the pants. He’s like, ‘Put your hands up,’ and I’m like, ‘No, no, no.’”

Ultimately, Hayek Pinault survived the incident, which Tatum apparently didn’t even realize was as dangerous as it was. “Everybody came in, and kind of took me away from [Tatum], and he said, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I said, ‘What’s wrong with me? You nearly killed me!’”

Hayek Pinault said that before starring in Magic Mike’s Last Dance she had never really received a male lap dance before: “If you’re going to start somewhere, why not Channing?” She noted that after spending a career playing exotic dancers in films like From Dusk Till Dawn and Dogma, it was nice to have the tables turned. “You know what? I deserve it,” she said. “I had to play the stripper in so many movies before, and now I get to sit down and enjoy.”