Young woman with autism charms Channing Tatum while interviewing him

WLS logo
Thursday, May 5, 2016
Channing Tatum attends the premiere of ''The Hateful Eight'' at the Ziegfeld Theater in December 2015 in New York.
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

Carly Fleischmann may not be able to speak on her own, but when she got a chance to interview Channing Tatum, she still found a way to lay on the charm.





Fleischmann, who communicates by typing into an iPad, dreams of becoming the world's first autistic and nonverbal talk show host. The autism advocate and author is starting a web series called "Speechless with Carly Fleischmann," and her sit-down with the Magic Mike actor was her first episode.



She started the chat with some flirtatious talk show banter with the famously good-looking actor. She had him giggling before she even finished introducing him.



"Soon he will dump his wife to be with me," Fleischmann joked. "How about that, Channing, would you date a 21-year-old person with autism?"



"Yes, if I got permission from my wife," Tatum replied.



Fleischmann shot back: "All right, I've got my lawyers working on your divorce papers as we speak."



The aspiring host also got Tatum to open up about his time as a stripper and his rebellious teenage years.



"We would just sneak out at night," he remembered. "There were all these houses being built, so we would probably vandalize houses. Which now, looking back on it, I feel so bad that somebody was trying to build their house and we were just tearing it down every night."



Fleischmann confessed that she had been scared to conduct the interview, but she faced her fear. To make things fair, she told Tatum to reach under his chair and open a box, which contained one of his worst fears. It was a doll.



"This is even a big deal for me to be touching it right now," he said as he clutched the doll. "Would you be able to sleep with this next to you?"



The interview has received more than 1.5 million views on YouTube since it was posted on Friday. Fleischmann's Facebook page was flooded with comments, with people from all over the world calling Fleischmann an inspiration.



"You have confirmed to me what I tell our 13 year old autistic son all the time," wrote one Facebook user, based in the UK, "and that is that you can do anything you want to if you set your mind and heart to it."



"Best interview of a celebrity ever," wrote another supporter, based in Australia. "Can i also say, you are an amazing person and huge inspiration to me and I'm sure many others."

Copyright © 2024 WLS-TV. All Rights Reserved.