During the Dec. 8 episode of Shannon Sharpe and Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson’s podcast “Nightcap with Unc and Ocho,” Johnson revealed more details about the risqué way he used to make ends meet while he was trying to play college football.
He said it all started in the late 1990s when he was ineligible to play football at Santa Monica College. “My mama [was] pissed,” Johnson told Sharpe, “Man, my gramma wouldn’t even let me come back to Miami.”
At one point in his life, Johnson stayed with his grandmother. But at the time she had told a 20-year-old Johnson that she had “washed” her hands and had done all that she could do for him.
He had to find a way to make a living, so he decided to become a male exotic dancer. “Boom, I was working at the Right Track,” the former Cincinnati Bengal said, “a little exotic club. So, I was dancing, making a little living.”
Johnson seemingly made a good decision as he said that he earned somewhere around $2,500 each night. This story was previously told earlier this year during an Instagram Live, but it was the first time that Sharpe had heard it.
The Super Bowl champion was astounded as he said, “Hol’ on. Women paid to see you get naked? Or, they paid to see you put your clothes on?” Johnson was dead serious as he said, “Unc, I ain’t tryna be funny, we family now. I worked at the Right Track on Florence. This way back in 1998, they used to call me ‘Twix.’”
Johnson believes it was because he was tall, and had a lot of “veins,” but Sharpe jokingly said he thought it was for another reason as he called Johnson “Twig.”
Some social media users are starting to not like Sharpe and Johnson’s un-sportslike tangents, as one person commented, “The more they don’t talk about sports the more I’m disliking them.” But others seem to love their off-the-cuff conversations, including one who said, “They both get on my nerves in the best way possible LMAO.”
A lot of viewers were just as shocked at Johnson’s stripping past as Sharpe was, as they said, “The fact he just saying it like it’s no biggy. TWIX?!?!.” Another person said the revelation shed some of Johnson’s actions in a new light, “Finding out Chad Johnson was a stripper explains SO MUCH.”
Finding out Chad Johnson was a stripper explains SO MUCH https://t.co/Py2bN2HHgF
— Shisha Wala (@skrrrt__kobain) December 8, 2023
As noted in his Instagram Live video, Johnson said the way he earned that amount of money was by dancing for larger women. “You always dance for the BBWs, the big women,” Johnson said, “Because they tip well. They tip real good.”
This was something that Sharpe could get behind as he yelled his agreement. The former tight end said, “You ain’t a lady if you ain’t 180. 210 count ya’ boy in.” Sharpe said that his grandfather told him he had to “slay a lot of dragons to get a queen.”
Johnson said because of how big women supported him while he was stripping, they were the types of women he went after when he was dating. Sharpe said plus-sized women love skinny men, and then he joked, “What two big people gon’ do? Take down a buffet?” Johnson said he very rarely sees two large people together, but he said that big women are a blessing.
