Channing Tatum Reveals How He Got Beyoncé to Join Him in Performing "Run the World (Girls)" on Lip Sync Battle

Beyoncé doesn't say yes to every request.

But when Channing Tatum asked her to make a surprise appearance during his recent Lip Sync Battle performance of her hit "Run the World (Girls)," Queen Bey agreed to grace him with her presence. Tatum appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show Thursday, where he explained how he managed to book one of the biggest acts in music. "I had never met her before. I won't even tell you what I had to do to essentially get her assistant's phone number...I was texting her. I didn't even have the intention of her coming," Tatum recalled. "It was a whole ploy to get permission to do something, 'cause I had gotten it through the grapevine that [Jenna Dewan Tatum] was gonna bring out [Paula Abdul] and I was like, 'Hmm, who can I bring out?' I know Beyoncé's not gonna come, so I wanted to bring like a cardboard cutout of Beyoncé out just to be funny." He even dressed in drag to recreate her look in the music video. "Ultimately I ended up having to meet Beyoncé doing Beyoncé, and that was definitely the most terrifying thing I've ever done."

   

Tatum compared her to Keyser Söze, Kevin Spacey's character from the 1995 movie The Usual Suspects. "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?'" he said. "And then you always know she's somewhere in the world that can reach out and touch you."

Beyoncé left the Lip Sync Battle stage moments after her cameo. "I said 'hi' and she goes, 'Hey, that was really funny. See ya!'" Tatum said. "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."

Tatum and his wife kicked off Lip Sync Battle's second season on Spike Jan. 7 with a special hour-long episode. The Hail Caesar! actor also performed "Let It Go" fromFrozen, dressed in character as Queen Elsa. Dewan-Tatum, meanwhile, invited Abdul to join her in performing "Cold Hearted." She capped things off by doingGinuwine's "Pony," which her hubby stripped to in both Magic Mike and Magic Mike XXL. Neither won or lost, with host LL Cool J declaring a tie.