‘Sir’ David’s jaw-dropping excuse for his C-word rants
IN fairness, it was never going to be easy for David Beckham to repair his shredded public image.
But in giving it his best shot yesterday, he offered an extraordinary excuse, insisting through friends that he was a ‘normal person’ who was just ‘extremely disappointed’ at being passed over for a knighthood.
The former England captain, 41, was referring to the release of damning emails which allegedly showed how desperate he was to ensure he was made ‘Sir David’ – and the lengths to which he would go to achieve his goal, even using his charity work.
When his campaign failed, he allegedly lashed out with an expletive-littered outburst worthy of the most petulant of divas.
Ironically, one target of his wrath was a real diva – Welsh mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins, who was awarded an OBE in the same year that the footballer’s much-anticipated gong was unforthcoming.
In an email to his friend and PR adviser Simon Oliveira, Beckham allegedly wrote: ‘Katherine Jenkins OBE for what? Singing at the rugby and going to see the troops plus admitting to taking coke? F ****** joke.’
Jenkins, 36, had previously admitted in an interview with The Mail on Sunday that her life was almost ruined by cocaine and ecstasy.
Beckham’s outburst would no doubt have come as an unpleasant surprise to the classical star, who only a year earlier had been forced to deny unfounded internet rumours of an affair with him. Yesterday she declined to comment.
Meanwhile, a source close to the former Manchester United star told The Mail on Sunday that his foul-mouthed rant was written ‘in the heat of the moment’.
The source said: ‘David is just like any normal person and he was extremely disappointed that he wasn’t deemed worthy of becoming a Sir.
‘He is a passionate man. He gets very passionate about his work and particularly about his country, Great Britain. That’s what drives him.
‘He spent a lot of time and effort getting the London Olympics to the UK which had such a positive effect on so many people, but for it not to be acknowledged made him very emotional. Who wouldn’t be?’
The series of emails was released by Football Leaks, the sporting equivalent of WikiLeaks, via European media. They were dismissed by a Beckham spokesman who said they had been ‘hacked and doctored’.
The cache includes allegations that Beckham, a Unicef ambassador, demanded £6,685 from the charity for a business-class flight for him to attend an event in Asia. He never took the flight because his sponsors had provided a private jet.
Football Leaks claimed emails suggested Beckham used his charity work as part of a conscious effort to win an honour – something he denies.
Beckham reacted angrily when Oliveira suggested he should put $1million into a prize-giving Unicef dinner in Shanghai, Football Leaks claimed. The footballer, who has an estimated net worth of £280million, allegedly replied: ‘I don’t want to put my personal money into this cause… If there was no fund, the money would be for me. This f ****** money is mine.’ French investigative site Mediapart, which published the Football Leaks material, alleged Beckham wanted to use his personal fund, named ‘7’ after his former shirt number at Manchester United, to promote his business activities. ‘Humanitarian causes were
‘Not to be acknowledged left him very emotional’
I’m just a normal person who is extremely disappointed not to get a knighthood STAR’S JAW-DROPPING EXCUSE FOR HIS LEAKED C-WORD RANTS
just a stepping stone for his personal affairs, and to project his image among advertisers,’ claimed a source close to the leaks.
Beckham, who received an OBE in 2003, allegedly ranted at members of the Honours Committee in an email after missing out on a knighthood in 2013, calling them a ‘bunch of c **** ’. He added: ‘Who decides the honours? It’s a disgrace.’
By 2013 Beckham’s playing career was over and he expected a fitting honour. That November, one newspaper even published a front-page story under the headline ‘Arise Sir David’, suggesting it was a certainty.
Ahead of Beckham’s appearance on the Jonathan Ross Show, Oliveira allegedly wrote in an email to the programme’s producers: ‘Maybe Jonathan should ask about the knighthood and say he should get it. What do you think? David is up for it.’
Beckham learned a few weeks after the show that his bid had failed.
The following year Oliveira urged him to intervene in the Scottish independence debate because ‘clearly the right thing is that we stay together due to our history and because we are stronger’. He advised Beckham: ‘I also think your support will play well with establishment and in turn help your knighthood.’ He replied: ‘Ok let’s do it.’
A spokesman for Beckham said: ‘This story is based on outdated material and taken out of context from hacked and doctored private emails from a third party server and gives a deliberately inaccurate picture.’
Unicef said last night: ‘David has given significant funds personally.’
WE ALL know you should never meet your heroes, and most of us have not had the pleasure and honour of meeting David Beckham, OBE. So if you don’t want to feel betrayed, disappointed and as sick as a parrot, definitely don’t read Becks’s private emails and – as they say on the News before Match of the Day – look away now.
A group called Football Leaks has revealed a shaming cache of them. I’m not crazy about a private person’s private emails being leaked, but they’re out there and be in no doubt: it’s a fusillade of own goals for the nation’s favourite blue-eyed boy, father of four, England’s 100capped perfect son, Prince William’s wing-man for the Olympics.
While Beckham’s representatives say the emails have been doctored, they reveal something really depressing. They include the claim that the main reason he did so much for charity – flying off to dirty, boiling, war-torn, terrible places in khaki fatigues and battered but tight T-shirts – was in the desperate, needy hope of making Posh ’n’ Becks (who got married at ‘Beckingham Palace’ in purple robes and crowns on gilt thrones – maybe there were early signs we all missed) none other than grand, titled ‘Sir David and Lady B’.
He is also alleged to have asked for £6,685 to pay for a biz-class seat to fly to Asia for Unicef, for which he is an ambassador, even though his sponsors had laid on a private jet.
The emails suggest that Becks only backed the No campaign in the Scottish referendum to suck up to the Establishment in the hope of a gong. When he missed out on a K in 2013 but shapely Welsh songbird Katherine Jenkins was made an OBE, he is alleged to have fired off a furious, expletive-laden email to his PR: ‘Katherine Jenkins OBE for what? Singing at the rugby and going to see the troops plus taking coke. F***ing joke.’
He apparently refused to donate £1million to charity (he is worth £280million and anyone who does anything for charity knows part of the deal is you give your own money in return for the lustre of the association with their good works), saying: ‘It’s my f***ing money’.
And on and on it goes. Of course, a furious row has broken out – denials, claims and counterclaims are being issued faster than yellow cards in a rainy North London derby – but it’s too late. Sorry to mix metaphors, but the priceless Ming vase has tumbled to the floor, shattered, and nothing can put Humpty back together again.
ALL over the country, families who clustered round the wireless last Sunday to hear Beckham tell a starstruck Kirsty Young on a specially extended, 75th-birthday edition of Desert Island Discs, that the thing that mattered most to him – ‘more than anything’ – was ‘meeting children’ and ‘changing children’s lives’ in the course of his charity work will be feeling massively let down.
And so am I. There are not many things in life, as Nina Simone sang in Everything Must Change, that you can be sure of. Rain comes from the clouds. Sun lights up the sky. Hummingbirds fly.
Up until this weekend, Becks was one of the things in life you could be sure of.
Now it turns out it was all about Brand Beckham after all, and ‘Golden Balls’ has feet of clay.
I never thought football was a beautiful game. I prefer rugby, actually. And now I don’t think Becks is a beautiful man (not on the inside, ‘where it counts’, anyway).
A sad day not just for football, but for the country.