Sideshow: Tatum is 'sexiest man'

His role as the warrior Duke in the G.I. Joe pics didn't hurt. But we bet his half-naked turn in Steven Soderbergh's true-life male stripper tale Magic Mike clinched it: Channing Tatum, 32, has been crowned People mag's Sexiest Man Alive for 2012. "My first thought was, 'Y'all are messing with me,' " Tatum says of the honor.

He told wife Jenna Dewan-Tatum "after we'd been in the bathtub washing our dogs. . . . She was like, 'What?' " Tatum supplants Philly native Bradley Cooper as the galaxy's hottest dude.

Tatum, who met Jenna on the set of Step Up, says he's ready to make babies. "I'm ready; I think she's ready. The first number that pops into my head is three," he says. Tatum isn't all physique. "People know him to be fun and sexy, but they don't know how emotionally deep and spiritually open he is," says Jenna.

Stephanie Rose Bongiovi, 19, whose dad is beloved Jersey rocker Jon Bon Jovi, was arrested Wednesday for heroin possession in a dorm room at Hamilton College, in Upstate New York, say FoxNews.com and TMZ. Police say they found a small amount of drugs in the room when they responded to an emergency call that Bongiovi was suffering from an overdose. Bongiovi, who was recovering at a nearby hospital Wednesday afternoon, was charged with three misdemeanor counts of possession.

A second coed was also arrested and charged. Bongiovi's father's people had yet to release a statement.

Actor and hip-hop pinup Nick Cannon, 32, tells Parade.com that his wife, Mariah Carey, doesn't need him to fight her battles.

"I don't need to give her any advice, because my wife is the strongest and classiest woman I've ever met," Nick says, speaking of Mariah's bloody war with fellow American Idol judge Nicki Minaj. "She knows how to handle herself extremely well."

Nick, who wed his darlin' on April 30, 2008, says his career never, ever trumps his family life.

"Family comes first," says Nick, who has fraternal twins, Monroe Cannon and Moroccan Scott Cannon, with Mariah.

"That's really what it is, and then everything else kind of works around that. As long as we prioritize and make sure our kids and each other are first, then our occupations come after that."

Animal rights activists are incensed that the geniuses who organized the official Los Angeles opening day-after party for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 cast real-live wolves to be in the bash. "There was a freestanding cage outside the entrance to the party, one trainer with the wolves," Unnamed Source tells Hollyscoop.com. A PETA rep says to the gossip site: "Didn't it dawn on . . . organizers that real wolves do not belong at a party with blaring music and flashing lights?"

PETA also is protesting the decision by 7-year-old reality star Alana "Honey Boo Boo" Thompson to name her new pet chicken Nugget. They assume its moniker is a reference to the processed chicken food product and not to Denver's NBA team.

In an open letter, PETA says the child ought to choose a name that will "honor her as your friend and protect other chickens just like her."

Thrice is nice for Taylor Swift, 22, whose latest LP, Red, is atop the Billboard album chart for a third week in a row, selling 196,000 units, according to Nielsen SoundScan. A mélange of artists take the second spot with the compilation album Now That's What I Call Music! Vol. 44, with 99,000 sold, while the never-aging Rod Stewart is at No. 3 with Merry Christmas, Baby, which moved 76,000 copies, baby.

Prognosticators prognosticate that boy band One Direction's Take Me Home will smash Taylor's grip on No. 1 next week.

Freelance paparazzo Paul Raef, who was arrested for recklessly pursuing Justin Bieber, is off the hook.

Raef was nabbed under a new California law that seeks to reduce reckless driving by photogs chasing celebs. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Thomas Rubinson dismissed the charge Wednesday.

Justin Bieber was pulled over by cops in West Hollywood Tuesday night for making an unsafe left turn in his swank, gazillion-dollar Ferrari. Justin got a ticket after officers also noticed that his car registration had expired. What a rebel!

The Dave Matthews Band will devote the first of its two-night stand at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J., to a fund-raiser for the Bama Works Sandy Relief Fund, says USAToday.com. . . . Don Nash, a 23-year Today show veteran, was named exec producer Wednesday. . . . Michael J. Fox, Julie Bowen, and Ziggy Marley are featured in a video from Just Label It calling for mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods. . . . Villainess Danielle Staub is returning to The Real Housewives of New Jersey.

Rihanna wants kids. And she tells Ellen DeGeneres she'd rather have them with a spouse than go it alone.

"I would prefer to ... have a full family," the Barbadian beauty says. "I'm pretty sure I could handle [it] if I had to on my own, but that's not what I'm striving for." Will she have the lil' tykes with controversial ex-bf and assaulter Chris Brown? Ellen didn't ask. She did ask if Rihanna has a beau (nope).

The singer shareed her idea of the perfect date: It's "just to stay on the couch and watch TV," she said. (We're the perfect couple then.) So what would Rihanna watch? "I love Breaking Amish right now," she said of the reality show.