Comedy legend Steve Coogan has claimed he was there when David Beckham had his first night out with Victoria. The pair are one of the most high-profile celebrity relationships in decades, having first met in 1997. They announced their engagement the following year and have since gone on to have four children, sons Brooklyn, Romeo, and Cruz, and daughter Harper Seven.
Coogan played an unlikely role in their first meeting, which he says was on a night out in Manchester. Speaking to BBC Breakfast, the 60-year-old explained that he had been socializing with Beckham and Giggs after a charity event. She also mentioned some interesting fashion choices on Beckham’s part, but Victoria didn’t seem to mind.
“I was out in Manchester with David Beckham and Ryan Giggs, kind of a night out after a charity event in Manchester,” Coogan said.
“The night he met Victoria. I was wandering there. I remember he was wearing a suit and shoes without socks. That was a very trendy and fashionable thing for young people. Is that no longer the case?”
Coogan had a mutual acquaintance with Victoria, and the Spice Girls had done him a huge favor when they were on tour before that fateful night.
“While on tour, someone stole all of our music equipment and our instruments were damaged so the Spice Girls lent us their music equipment,” he explained.
“It was around the same time. They were in Manchester at the same time I was doing the show and David Beckham was there too.”
Coogan’s account of how the power couple first met differs from the story told by Beckham, who revealed they first passed each other at a soccer match.
During an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, he said: “She came to a football game, I said hello from across the room, and that was it. I thought I missed my chance, and then a week later she showed up at another football game.”
The second meeting was more complicated, as Beckham told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show. “We talked for about an hour in the players’ lounge, and then she actually took the train that day and wrote her number on my train ticket, which I still have.”
Meanwhile, Victoria detailed how she was surprised by Beckham’s family-oriented personality in a letter she wrote to her younger self in Vogue.
“You’ll see David standing to the side with his family while the other footballers are standing in the bar drinking with their mates (he’s not even in the first team at this stage, you’re a famous player),” she wrote.
“And he has such a cute smile. You’re close to family, too, and you think about how much he looks like you.”
