Jenna Dewan wasn’t slamming her ex – she was speaking about herself.
The 40-year-old actress recently opened up about the struggles she faced as a working mom after welcoming daughter Everly in 2013 on Dear Media’s Dear Gabby podcast.
She revealed she had “a lot of postpartum anxiety” at the time juggling being a new mom and hectic work schedules – and ex-husband Channing Tatum “wasn’t available.”
“With Evie, because I had her in London, and I had to go back to work on an episodic TV show… in Vancouver,” Jenna explained.
According to TMZ, the former couple was living in London during Everly’s birth – he was filming Jupiter Ascending at the time. While Channing was not physically able to accompany Jenna and their newborn daughter, he’d taken steps to make sure mother and daughter would be as comfortable as possible while she worked on her project in Vancouver. Sources say the actor chartered a private plane and rented a nice home for his family.
“I had to travel with her and at the time, Chan wasn’t available to be with us for the most part,” Jenna recalled on the podcast. “So, it was me, my doula, and Evie all by ourselves traveling at six weeks.”
“I thought, ‘OK, I think I can do that. It’ll be two months after and I’ll have her on set,'” she continued. “That was really hard because that was long hours.
“I did have her on set with me constantly. It was just really difficult,” she added.
“I had a lot of postpartum anxiety,” she said. “I just never stopped. You’re up a couple times in the night and then you’re working all day. I was breastfeeding. I was pumping. I was without a partner. I mean, it was just craziness.”
Channing and Jenna, who were married for nearly 10 years, announced that they have “lovingly chosen to separate as a couple” in April 2018. In October of that year, she began dating Steve Kazee – they announced their engagement in February 2020.
Jenna welcomed her second child Callum, whom she shares with current partner Steve, amid the coronavirus pandemic.
She recalled being “so grounded” after the birth, sharing, “Even though the world was crazy, I was home and in this love nest and it was different.”
After the podcast aired, Jenna went on Instagram Story to make it clear that she wasn’t criticizing her ex.
“It’s unfortunate that countless media outlets have taken an important conversation on a woman’s experience with postpartum issues and pulled quotes to make it appear that I was slamming my daughter’s father, something I would never do,” she wrote in her IG Story post Tuesday (August 3). “As two working parents, we both faced challenges at the time, but I speak only for myself and not about him.”
