Joe Lycett has revealed that he didn’t shred £10,000 in a livestreamed stunt on Sunday, and has instead donated the money to LGBTQ+ charities.
The comedian, who is known for his high-profile stunts, had pledged to shred £10,000 of his own cash if David Beckham failed to end his controversial multimillion-pound World Cup promotion deal with Qatar ahead of Sunday’s first match.
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The moment comedian Joe Lycett dropped £10,000 into a shredder
When Beckham failed to respond, or acknowledge the ultimatum in any way, Lycett had appeared to carry out his promise, live streaming himself dropping £10k into a wood-chipper on a website titled BenderLikeBeckham.com.
However, today the 34-year-old posted an admission in a short video on social media, calling the stunt “an empty threat designed to get people talking,” adding that, like the football star’s controversial ambassadorship, it was “total b******* from the start”.
Calling this his “last message to David Beckham” he jokingly labelled himself, “that p**** who shredded loads of money in a cost of living crisis.”
He went on to explain: “I haven’t quite told you the whole truth… Because the truth is, the money that went into the shredder was real, but the money that came out was fake.
“I would never destroy real money. I would never be so irresponsible. In fact, the £10,000 had already been donated to LGBTQ+ charities before I even pressed send on the initial tweet last week.”
He went on: “I never expected to hear from you. It was an empty threat, designed to get people talking.
“In many ways, it was like your deal with Qatar David, total b******* from the start.”
He also shredded the famous David Beckham cover issue of Attitude – the first ever cover of a gay magazine to feature a Premiere League footballer.
Lycett shreds a copy of Attitude magazine featuring Beckham
Lycett said he had asked Attitude for permission to shred it, and they had said “they were more than happy to oblige”.
He then placed the June 2002 edition into a paper shredder propped up on bricks – not the industrial wood-chipper he had used for his initial stunt – and watched Beckham’s face disappear into the machine.
He ended his video, which was filmed in the same dingy room as his money shredding livestream the day before, by saying it had “all been quite a lot this” and that he was “off down the gay village to have a few pints.”
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