Joe Lycett’s #BendersLikeBeckham
Who Is Joe and What Was His #BendersLikeBeckham Stunt?
[ — Go back to: Why Joe Lycett Might Kill Us All — ]
Joe Lycett is a national treasure. The British public love a camp comedian but Joe is something more. As well as being very camp and very funny, he fights for the rights of ordinary people, takes shots at big corporations, and he pokes fun at politicians and the rich and famous. His consumer affairs comedy programme Joe Lycett’s Got Your Back tries to help viewers when they’re badly treated by companies. He’s taken on Hugo Boss, Hermes, Uber Eats and many others.
Joe has also tackled the subject of ‘greenwashing’ through a spin-off documentary Joe Lycett vs the Oil Giant where he exposed the practices of Royal Dutch Shell. Just prior to Liz Truss’s ill-fated Prime Ministership, Joe’s appearance as a panellist on the debut show of Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg led to the BBC’s Director General being questioned before the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee.
His most recent action — the #BendersLikeBeckham stunt — involved the threatened shredding of £10k. According to Unicorn Magazine, Joe is probably the most high profile pansexual man in Britain today. He wanted to make an impactful, public statement about Qatar’s treatment of its LGBTQ+ community. Qatar were the controversial hosts of 2022’s FIFA World Cup. Joe focused his stunt on a precise target — David Beckham — and scheduled its culmination to coincide with the World Cup’s opening ceremony.
The stunt began on Sunday 13th November 2002 — exactly one week prior to the opening ceremony — when Joe posted this video to his social media. In it Joe shows us £10,000 in cash which he says is a thousand pounds for every million that David Beckham has (reportedly) received from the Qatari government for his role as an ‘Ambassador’. Joe tells David directly that unless he ends his relationship with Qatar, Joe will broadcast the shredding of the £10k on the website he’d set up especially for the stunt benderslikebeckham.com. Joe tells David that his reputation as a ‘gay icon’ will be shredded along with the £10k. If however, Beckham acceded to Joe’s request then he’d donate the money to LGBTQ+ charities.
Despite further attempts to elicit a response, David Beckham made no reply. So on Sunday 20th November Joe live streamed what appeared to be him shredding £10,000 of his own money. But then on Tuesday 22 of November, Joe released a third and final video revealing that the shredding had been a trick and that he’d already given the money to charity. Joe said that he would ‘never destroy real money’ as he would ‘never be so irresponsible’.
The stunt generated enormous interest. It was picked up by media companies at home and abroad. Joe’s videos garnered tens of millions of views. It was even mentioned in the House of Commons by Sir Keir Starmer, Leader of the Opposition. A few weeks after the stunt Joe Lycett vs Beckham: Got Your Back at Xmas was broadcast on Channel 4. It recounted the stunt with some behind-the-scenes footage. The end of the show included a statement from David Beckham’s representative. It justified David Beckham’s relationship with Qatar and the FIFA World Cup by saying that engagement leads to greater understanding and empathy between people.
