We have seen some startling fashion choices from David Beckham and wife Victoria over the years, from their matching head-to-toe leather suits to Becks’ notorious sarong. Now it’s his badly-dyed brows and hair, as seen yesterday during an appearance with the Prince of Wales, that are setting tongues wagging – and raising eyebrows.
Beckham, who joined Prince William at RAF Northolt to support the London Air Ambulance Up Against Time appeal, drew criticism from fans over his peculiar appearance, in particular eyebrows and a beard that looked badly painted on – and, along with his bouffant hair, suspiciously free of any greys.
In contrast to many male celebrities his age who are proudly embracing the silver fox mantle, Beckham appears to have had a last-minute panic before his royal encounter and gone for a rushed dye job, with lighter hair and brows. The unfortunate result is an embarrassingly fake Ken doll look that is a definite own goal for the fashion-conscious ex-footballer.
In a strange way, though, Beckham is right on trend. The latest TikTok phenomenon (clocking up more than 160 million views) is so-called “eyebrow blindness,” in which users look back and cringe at unfathomable eyebrow decisions. Becks can now definitely join the hordes of red-faced, and previously terrible-browed, TikTokers.
There is some speculation that Beckham’s bad dye job is partly the result of his recent Netflix documentary, which hit the streaming service a year ago. The show prompted a backlash from fans over the appearance of his hair (which had been recently cut) and face – which may be responsible for the change.
One shrewd viewer speculated that Becks had “had work done… especially around his eyes,” and pointed out on X (formerly Twitter) that “his hair, beard and eyebrows have all been dyed too dark. He’s naturally fair and should have gone lighter, not darker.” It was a choice more bewildering than the offside rule.
Perhaps revisiting his gilded youth also inspired Beckham to try to turn the clock back. Although he’s in extremely good nick for a man of his age, watching endless footage of his twenty-something godlike self might have prompted some sort of midlife crisis.
We do know that Becks is prone to vanity. In 2019 James Corden played a prank on him on his Late Late Show, confronting the aghast sports star with a deliberately dreadful golden statue (featuring cross-eyes and a long pointy chin), that was supposedly to be erected outside a stadium in Los Angeles.
A delighted Piers Morgan crowed on Good Morning Britain that the skit “exposes just how vain [Beckham] is.” He added: “It’s the look of horror when Mr Perfect sees imperfection in himself.”
Cosmetic surgery experts have previously commented that the remarkably smooth-featured 49-year-old has likely had some extra help. A spokesperson for MYA Cosmetic Surgery said in 2019 that he probably had Botox injections in his forehead and glabella (the area between the eyebrows) in order to “create a smooth forehead and limit any frown or expression lines.”
Publicly Beckham has insisted that he is anti-Botox, protesting in 2018: “Cosmetic surgery might be OK for some people; I’m not saying it’s bad. But for me, personally, never. Never!” In 2023 he told The Telegraph: “Going grey, going bald? I don’t care,” adding “I am ageing gracefully.”
Really, Becks? This from the man who debuted what looked like spray-on hair in Hong Kong in 2018, soon after fans began to comment on his thinning barnet. Jeremy Vine quipped on social media: “For years I trusted that, although many things in the world were not as they seemed, David Beckham’s hair was real. And now this.”
Addressing the allegation that Becks had in fact undergone a hair transplant (breaking Vine’s heart in the process), a cagey representative for Beckham said it was “a matter of privacy whether it’s true or false.”
Ironically, his 2023 Netflix documentary has reportedly led to a surge in demand for hair transplant procedures, with Turkish clinic Estenove revealing that numerous men were requesting a Becks-like 90s floppy hairstyle with a curtain fringe, as seen on the series. We all want to wear it like Beckham.
That iconic look is just one of many hair-raising decisions made by the footballer over the years, as that Netflix doc lovingly illustrated. He’s always been a fan of the dramatic transformation.
As a young footballer, those dreamy boyband locks were his angelic signature. He then experimented with a longer, bleached chop during his early years with Posh Spice, and the pair also began coordinating their flashy fashions – such as that 1999 matchy-matchy Versace look which featured more leather than a BDSM club in Soho.
Then in 2000 came the infamous buzzcut, which many believe was an act of rebellion by Beckham against his then-manager, Sir Alex Ferguson. Becks denied that in the documentary, claiming “I never did it to create attention,” but it’s pretty much impossible to believe that he didn’t anticipate the storm of publicity which would follow. Both on and off the pitch, Beckham has always been a showman.
More eye-catching hair selections followed, including the mohawk, the frosted tips, the shoulder-length surfer waves, the ponytail (and, gasp, the double ponytail), the mullet, and, most recently, the Jedward quiff, another close shave (possibly to disguise thinning hair), and now this new primped, moussed and strangely dark mop.
Oddly, Beckham has said that he only regrets one of his many ’dos: the cornrows from 2003, which, shamefully, he sported when he went to South Africa and wound up meeting Nelson Mandela. He admitted that they would nowadays be condemned as “cultural appropriation.”
His passion for fashion has also been on display over the years. Who can forget the floor-length leather trench coat (à la The Matrix), the diamond-encrusted crucifix (Victoria wore a matching one, natch), the grunge beanies, wearing a sleeveless shirt and durag when greeting Prince Charles, or the various pants adverts for Armani and H&M that manifestly supported Posh’s nickname for him: Golden Balls.
Then there was the sarong that stopped the world in 1998. Beckham went on a date night with Victoria during the World Cup in France wearing a patterned sarong over his trousers. Fans were apoplectic: was their manly footie hero really in a skirt? Surely not! “It was an outrage,” Becks recalled to The Telegraph.
But he wasn’t put off by that adverse reaction: this was the dawning of a metrosexual Becks, and a fashion risk-taker. Who else would brave a snakeskin jacket, or sport a shiny bacofoil silver suit when strolling with then-Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2012?
Thankfully he has also discovered the well-tailored suit, just as Victoria has rebranded herself as a chic designer. The pair hit the back of the net with their smart attire for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding in 2018, Becks rocking the classic Edwardian morning suit. He’s also done pretty well lately as a cool dad – at least until this latest relapse into fussy touch-ups.
Beckham recently confessed to The Telegraph that these days he’d rather leave fashion to his sons. “They go into my wardrobe, taking my old Adidas stuff. Cruz had my old Wrangler jeans on the other day, and jacket. I’m getting older, I can’t do what I used to.”
Ah yes: age comes for us all, even the chiselled athletes. Take your own advice, Becks, and embrace this new phase: you’re not fooling anyone with the dye job. It’s when he’s pushing forward and making bold choices that this sports legend-turned-style influencer proves he still has the golden touch.
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