Jenna, Take Two

Jenna Dewan knows what you’re thinking. She rose to fame as one-half of a Hollywood golden couple, so who is she now, post (very public) split? The answer: still the same hyper-talented actress, dancer, and producer…but with even bigger plans.

- Whitney Friedlander

Jenna Dewan has found real love again. There’s just one difference between what the tabloids have been breathlessly reporting and the actual facts: She does have a new bae in her life...but he’s a dog named Cosmo (yes, named in part for this Cosmo, for which she always dreamed of being a cover star). “He’s my new boyfriend,” she says of her rescue, a Catahoula-Labrador mix. “He’s really sweet. He gives me lots of kisses.”

Puppy love aside, the 38-year-old has had quite a year. Shortly after cementing their status as an iconic couple with a viral Lip Sync Battle, Jenna and her movie-star husband of nine years, Channing Tatum, announced they were uncoupling. The internet wept. So did Jenna.

“People are like, ‘How do you get through this?’” she says over lunch at the Polo Lounge in Beverly Hills. “I didn’t run away from my feelings. I let myself cry. I let myself grieve. This is one of those situations where I will see the light. The dawn is coming.” That dawn is bringing another new beginning: Jenna, in the spotlight—on her own.

Of course, the transition hasn’t been totally seamless so far. The former Mrs. Dewan Tatum (at the time of this interview, she was still listed in the Polo Lounge reservation system with both last names) knows where her fame stems from. “I’m obviously super aware that people know me, they know Channing, they know us together,” she says. “We’d been a beloved couple for a long time. I was in Berlin and people were like, ‘We love your Lip Sync Battle!’ I was like, oh my god. You mean the time when I humped my husband-atthe-time’s face? I’m so glad that’s my calling card.”