Updated: January 23, 2023

We at Bucks Cabaret know one indisputable fact: Women are beautiful. Not just our exotic dancers; plenty of celebrities are famous for their stunning beauty. Did you know, though, that many of those same famous women – and even some male celebrities – were exotic dancers before rising to fame on the stage or screen? 

Lady Gaga

At one point when she was young, Gaga lived at home with her parents and was a student at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. However, she decided she wanted a change, so she moved out and left school behind. To make ends meet, she waited tables during the day and was a burlesque dancer when the sun went down. Unsurprisingly, her style onstage was intense from the very start.

“My act was pretty wild,” she said. “I’d wear black leather and dance to Black Sabbath, Guns N’ Roses, and Faith No More. Very rock ‘n’ roll.”

Kendra Wilkinson

Celebrity Kendra Wilkinson, too, cashed in on the enriching life of an exotic dancer. Dental assistant by day, licensed to lose her lingerie at age 18, Kendra claims to US Magazine, “My first night there, I made $4,000 just by sitting with a guy. Because I was a new girl, and he just wanted to sit with me and get to know me. Four grand! The next day, I was like, ‘Um, I gotta quit dental assisting.’” We are eternally grateful to the guy with good taste who encouraged her to share her smile and curves with us all.

NeNe Leakes

NeNe Leakes, lately of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” fame, said she had been an exotic dancer years before reality television stardom, using the professional name Silk and raking in $1,000 nightly at gentlemen’s clubs. 

Catherine Zeta-Jones

Dozens of other Hollywood and New York celebrities also have performed as exotic dancers. Catherine Zeta-Jones did it to afford plastic surgery.

Anna Nicole Smith

Anna Nicole Smith worked her way from pole dancing to Playboy. Courtney Love funded her band, Hole, with money from exotic dancing. 

Channing Tatum

Channing Tatum, who played an exotic dancer in “Magic Mike,” was an exotic dancer in real life. You can see the video for yourself. His Florida outfit bears a striking similarity to the outfit he wore for his centerpiece performance in “Magic Mike.”

Chris Pratt

Anna Faris is married to another exotic dancer, film and TV star Chris Pratt, who admitted freely that “I was always a very much naked person. I loved to always get naked. I was very free, so I thought, ‘I may as well get paid.’” 

Javier Bardem

By his own admission, Bardem wasn’t able to make dancing a career. He took the first job as a joke, but then he was hired to come back again. The second go-around could have gone better. For one thing, his mother and sister were in the audience, which was very small.

“I think there were, like, three people there,” he explained. “It was very embarrassing but I did it. I mean, I’m a performer, and I gave my word. So I was a stripper for a day.”

Courtney Love

Love’s motivation for dancing was her music career. She took the money she earned to buy a van and bankroll her band, Hole. Her income allowed the band to keep pursuing what they wanted to do until they got enough attention to start booking regular paying gigs.

Blac Chyna

Chyna started working as a dancer to save money for college. She kept her job when she became a student at Johnson & Wales University in Miami. However, it soon became clear that she couldn’t keep up with both her studies and work, so she decided to drop out and dance full-time. 

The choice worked out for her. She says she made as much as $15,000 a night and that she enjoyed it so much that if she hadn’t become famous, she’d probably still be dancing.

Mark Consuelos

Between earning his degree at the University of South Florida and starting his career as an actor, Consuelos paid the bills by entertaining onstage. He says that working as a dancer is a common career choice for “a lot of hot guys in Hollywood.”

Although his wife Kelly Ripa insists that the people he was friends with at the time “talked him into stripping,” it sounds like Consuelos knew exactly what he was doing and how rewarding it would be.

Constance Wu

To prepare for her role in the 2019 movie Hustlers, Wu worked as a dancer for a while. Apparently, she’s a natural, and she took to it right away.

“I gave lap dances to strangers,” she said. “I made 600 bucks my first night!” 

Wu says that she’s glad she had the real-life experience because there is no substitute if you want to understand what it feels like to be a dancer.

Visit a Bucks Cabaret Location Near You Today!

All these celebrities thrive on attention; they gained confidence by performing in front of live, appreciative audiences. The gorgeous performers at Bucks Cabaret share many attributes with them. Our strong, beautiful women are confident, skilled and absolutely smoldering. Visit Bucks Cabaret at either of our two locations in Dallas and Fort Worth for a glimpse of the rising stars.