Parfitt says the Christchurch show will be their biggest to date in Oceania. They recently did their biggest show in Denmark with 3000 people at a stadium.
“The response to the tours worldwide has been amazing, which definitely proves that Magic Men is a universally appreciated brand.”
Parfitt was visiting Australia from the UK nine years ago and stumbled into the stripping industry when a club owner kept calling him Tatum’s doppelganger.
“He introduced me to my now business partner Carlos Fang, who had just started a company called Magic Men Australia,” explains Parfitt.
“I think a lot of people used to know me as a Channing lookalike, but now my following has grown on social media, people now recognise me as Will Parfitt, a brand on its own.”
Parfitt says his following is so big in South America that they treat him like a king.
He is right, he is his own brand. His online audience is sizeable, with over 8.3 million fans on TikTok, nearly 130 million “likes” on Instagram and nearly 3 million followers on the platform.
Has Parfitt met his lookalike?
“I’ve never met Channing, but someone told me they had shown him my photo on a red carpet and he knew who I was straight away and said I was a bit of a clown,” he says.
“To be honest, I took that as a bit of a compliment as I was surprised he even knew who I was.”
Being a lookalike has been lucrative for the 33-year-old; there’s his career with Magic Men, and he’s launched his own merchandise, including a car freshener and (because of fan demand) a sex toy.
Parfitt isn’t the only Hollywood star lookalike in the troupe. Jaxon Human has a resemblance to Sons of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam. Born Kristian Nagel, Human’s name seems to be a mix of Hunnam’s character Jax and his real-life surname.
Like many men in Magic Men, he has been on a reality show. When Human, who has a Sons of Anarchy tattoo on his back, was on Love Island Australia five years ago, a contestant was sure he was Hunnam.
Human tells Spy that before he was on Love Island, he was one of the original members of Magic Men 11 years ago, when the brand first launched. “It’s been quite the journey from the early days to the worldwide success Magic Men enjoys now,” says Human.
Both Parfitt and Human are Melbourne-based and have been on their latest world tour for four months.
Parfitt says he has been on tour for so long he can’t remember what his normal life was like.
“My weekdays are a lot more chilled than my weekends when I am in Australia, where, when I am back, I tour every single week.”
He can’t wait to see his Kiwi audiences again, and welcomes girls to bring their mum, their grandma, their best guy mate or their best girlfriend.
“It’s going to be a massive night – one they will not forget for a while,” he says.
Ricardo Simich is the New Zealand Herald’s Spy Editor. Based in Auckland he covers all roads that lead to popular culture.
