A male stripper has claimed he’s ‘never been so busy’ in response to reports that woke brides-to-be have turned away from smutty hen-dos.
In fact, Mike Stratton aka ‘The Hustler’, from Wigan near Manchester, says people’s demands are ‘wilder than ever’ and love it when he strips fully naked – and will boo him if he doesn’t.
Mike who, in his mid 50s has previously been described as the UK’s ‘oldest male stripper’, started taking his clothes off for money back in 1986 as a jobless teenager, before touring the world.
His comments come after one hen and stag party organiser said not one male stripper was booked for a bridal bash throughout the whole of last year.
They said butlers in the buff were down nearly 70 per cent – with people finding real-life stripping ‘overwhelming’ and opting for tamer parties such as mini golf.
But after 40 years working in the industry, Mike said that demand for him to do the Full Monty is stronger than ever, and is particularly popular with ‘grannies’ who will try to ‘rip his clothes off’.
When asked if the stripping industry is ‘tamer’ nowadays, he told FEMAIL: ‘Not at all. The ladies’ nights are just as raucous as they ever were.
‘They want more now – if you do a butler job, back in the day you would just stand there and have pictures with the girls.
Mike Stratton, who is Britain’s ‘oldest male stripper’ says he’s more popular than ever
‘You might walk around filling up people’s glasses or giving them canapes, or sit at the door giving glasses of champagne to the girls.
‘Nowadays they want you to do all of that, plus doing games with the girls. Then at the end they always say “oh you couldn’t do a quick strip for her, because it’s her birthday?” So they expect a lot for the price of a butler.’
Games include passing a balloon between two lines of girls without touching it with their hands. Others involve teams coming up with as many sexual positions as they can.
In fact, the father-of-three is particularly popular with older women – and even attended someone’s 80th birthday party.
He said he’s particularly fond of doing events for pensioners, as they don’t hold back with their demands.
Mike continued: ‘Put it this way, they’re not shy. You think you’ll get some granny up and you think she’s going to be alright and then she’s trying to rip your clothes off!
‘The younger ones can be a bit shy. But if they’re in a wheelchair, even better!
‘If I get somebody up from the audience, I always try to get a pensioner because it’s so much funnier than getting a good looking girl. If you get a granny up, it’s always good for a laugh.’
Mike Stratton, 55, from Wigan, Manchester, started taking clothes off for money as a jobless teenager in 1986. Pictured in 2008, at a Manchester social club
Mike said that demand for him to do the Full Monty is stronger than ever, and is particularly popular with ‘grannies’
He said that ever since the 1997 Full Monty film came out, there has been huge demand for him to strip off completely – and in fact finds it ’embarrassing’ if he doesn’t.
Mike said: ‘Back in the day before the Full Monty came out, we never used to [strip fully naked] but once that came out, if you didn’t you would get booed, and that’s embarrassing.
‘I prefer it – I like to go out with a bang, if you know what I mean! It’s like the grand finale of the show.
‘If you don’t get to do it, you kind of feel like you’re being restricted. The women sort of get disappointed and are like “boo, get them off”.’
Mike says he always asks how old the women are, and how far they want him to go.
‘If they say “we don’t want you to get your willy out”, I ask “are you sure!”‘ he said.
Once he was recruited for a 40th party and only ‘showed a bit of bum’. Mike said: ‘You should have heard the booing!’
He said he will strip for anyone between the ages of 18 and 80, but usually his clients are older than 25.
Mike first got into stripping while looking for jobs just after leaving school and has been doing it for 40 years
However, though he may be as popular as ever, Mike admitted the industry has changed.
These days he mainly does solo work rather than huge group parties, as people ‘don’t pay as much’.
He said that Covid temporarily killed the industry and 18 months of no events meant many strippers ended up retiring or finding other jobs.
Also popular recently are life drawing classes at hen dos or birthday parties, for which Mike is a model.
‘You’ll go in, stand there b*******, and they’ll draw you for a laugh. You’re stood there naked in the middle of the day with around 15 girls all drawing your bits,’ he explained.
Mike charges £100 for a butler job, rising to £150 including a strip. The actual strip takes 15 minutes, to four songs.
‘You can’t beat going on stage,’ said the performer previously, who now runs his own stripper agency. ‘I think that’s kept me young.’
‘I call adrenaline a “youth drug”,’ the star – whose solo stage name is ‘The Hustler’ – added.
He’s particularly fond of doing events for pensioners, as they don’t hold back with their demandst Stuff – next to a woman’s coffin – in 2006
But the stripper, who is now a father-of-three, admitted he does have boundaries when it comes to the ages of his clients now.
‘These days, when my agent phones me up and says “Do you want to do this birthday gram?” I’ll ask “How old is she?”,’ he explained.
‘If they’re under 25, I’ll say “Listen, that’s a bit young for me.” But I’m all over the pensioners. They love me. To anybody over 50, I’m like catnip.’
Mike first got into stripping while looking for jobs just after leaving school.
He came across an advert asking for male ‘kiss-o-gram’ models and bagged the role after impressing his ‘seedy looking’ first boss when he was just 18.
The young performer then spent nine months as an Ibiza party rep in the late 1980s before returning to the UK and going on to join the legendary Dreamboys troupe in London.
A decade later, he had founded his own group called The X-men, with frenzied women going wild for the lads as they toured the UK and Europe.
Mike recalled one specific incident in South Wales where an affectionate fan even bit him on the bottom and drew blood.
In one of his more intense jobs, he even had an encounter with the Russian Mafia for a job in St Petersburg in 1996
Mike is pictured (far right) on the set of Fear Factor TV quiz in Argentina in 2004
‘I always said I wanted to be in Take That, but I ended up in the Dreamboys,’ he joked.
‘Several times in the early days, when we were one of the only groups doing it in the country, we had to be rescued by doormen and ferried out the back exit.
‘I was once stood there having a picture taken and all of a sudden I had this mad pain in my bum. Turned around and there was a girl on her knees. She’d bit my bum.
‘She drew blood and I had to go and have a tetanus shot.’
Mike even still has scars on his back, from where he’s been scratched.
‘I don’t know what is with women,’ he added. ‘But they seem to want a piece of you.’
In his most bizarre booking, the stripper and his troupe performed a Full Monty dance routine to Donna Summer’s Hot Stuff – next to a woman’s coffin – in 2006.
They were asked to fulfil the woman’s last wish to re-enact the iconic dole queue routine from the cult classic film in front of 250 stunned mourners – and after a smattering of applause, he says the raunchy dancers hot-tailed it out of the church and drove home in silence.
In the past he has pocketed tens of thousands of pounds in cash and prizes after getting onto 18 TV quizzes, including Bullseye, Decimate and Fear Factor
Mike appearing on an episode of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
‘At the church, I said to her son, “So everybody knows this is happening?” He went, “Oh no, there’s only a couple of us who know.” I said, “You’re joking!”,’ Mike revealed.
‘People were crying, saying what a wonderful person she was. Then her son got up and said: “She had a great sense of humour, as you’re about to find out.”‘
He says people were ‘gobsmacked’.
‘Normally, when we finish a show we’re all buzzing and chatting about it,’ Mike said. ‘But we all just sat there in silence on the motorway, driving home traumatised.’
In one of his more intense jobs, he even had an encounter with the Russian Mafia for a job in St Petersburg in 1996.
‘We didn’t know – we just got a gig off an agent in this country,’ the performer revealed.
‘We were doing the Friday and Saturday night – it was like “Ladies’ weekend”.
‘The first night, we were backstage, and we were spying through the curtain. All these women were coming in dressed in 1950s Audrey Hepburn-style ball gowns.
‘I was like “What’s going on here?” We did the show. It was a little bit weird but alright. But turns out that all the girls worked for the mafia.’
‘They were “ladies of the night”,’ Mike revealed. ‘We were there as a treat. When we came back, we told the agent off for letting us work for the mafia without us knowing.’
And the happily married stripper says his wife, Donna, 52, even has a special trick to help the troupe bring in tips.
When Mike went on The Weakest Link, he managed to reach the final two players
‘Sometimes my wife would turn up at the gig, and I’d say, alright, when I’m doing this part of the show, put your hand up in the air with £5,’ he explained.
‘She’d do that and we’d all jump on her and do loads of stuff. And then they’d all have their fivers up in the air.
‘It was like a shield bidder in an auction at a market, where the first bid gets other people bidding. It was a little cheeky way of making extra money.’
Besides his career in stripping, Mike has also incredibly managed to make £70,000 by going on dozens of TV game shows – from The Weakest Link to Bullseye – and has penned a book about this experience, titled How To Get on Game Shows and Win £1000’s: Confessions of a Game Show Addict.
He is also writing a new book, My Life As A Male Stripper, set to be released at the end of 2025.
The biography will include ‘funny stories’ from his time in the entertainment industry and, of course, plenty of X-rated details.
