Back in the 2000s, Chad Michael Murray was quite the hot commodity on projects like A Cinderella Story and One Tree Hill, and lately he’s been having a bit of a resurgence. He reprised his role as Jake in Freakier Friday on the 2025 movie calendar and stars on the romantic drama series Sullivan’s Crossing. His career also took an interesting turn last Christmas, as he played a stripper in The Merry Gentlemen, and apparently his daughter had a pretty hilarious reaction to that.
It’s only September, but we’re already getting a look at what 2025 Christmas movies are in store. It remains to be seen if the upcoming Netflix movies will carry the same heat as last year’s slate, which gave us Lacey Chabert’s Hot Frosty and Chad Michael Murray’s The Merry Gentlemen. The oddness of adding strippers to a holiday movie isn’t lost on Murray, and apparently it got him in trouble with his little one at home, as he told Newsweek:
I did a movie last year called The Merry Gentlemen. I was a stripper. Because when you think of Christmas, that's the first thing you think about. And I remember I was watching it with my wife before it came out, and my daughter walked in. She was 7 at the time. She just came in and just started smacking me. ‘What did you do? Put your shirt on!’ Adorable. Adorable, but it makes it so much sweeter. It makes it so much better.
It is so funny to me that Chad Michael Murray’s 7-year-old called him out for being shirtless in a movie. The “What did you do?” slays me.
Now, just in case you’re thinking Netflix’s Magic Mike-meets-Hallmark Christmas rom-com might have been a little too risqué for such young eyes, I can assure you that The Merry Gentlemen remained PG enough to not ruin any tiny lives. There was a bit of gyrating and enough bare chests to warrant CMM’s chastizing, but Channing Tatum was definitely not in this building.
I can totally see why the One Tree Hill alum’s Christmas stripper movie would cause such a reaction for his daughter, but for those of us who grew up watching Lucas Scott playing basketball or Tristan capturing Rory’s heart on Gilmore Girls, this movie — and the requisite Netflix hunky holiday calendar — was really exciting.
The Merry Gentlemen, which is available to stream with a Netflix subscription, centers around Broadway dancer Ashley Davis (Britt Robertson), who returns home for Christmas to learn that her parents’ venue is in danger of closing due to not paying their rent. After seeing handyman Luke shirtless, she forms the idea to do an all-male revue to raise the money.
I have to admit, the sexy holiday rom-com is a movement I can get behind, so we’ll just have to wait to see what original Netflix Christmas movies await us this year. If Chad Michael Murray returns to the lineup, however, he might want to consider locking the door before hitting Play.
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