Happy 40th Birthday, David Beckham!
<p>David Beckham turned 40 at the weekend with a huge party in a luxe resort in Marrakech. We take a look back at a life of football, glamor, and stripping off.</p>
David Beckham Bodywear via H&M
It looks pretty fabulous: Moorish architecture, belly dancers, lanterns around the pool, and the famously perenially pouty-scowling wife. But hang on, is that a smile? It is. And also on the day of his 40th birthday, David Beckham got a birthday cake from each of his children, Brooklyn, Romeo, Cruz, and Harper.
In another picture we see him with, if not the whole of the Spice Girls contingent, but still…a shot that includes Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell, Melanie Chisholm, and Victoria Beckham, plus honorary Spice Girl Eva Longoria (who called herself “Latina Spice"), which is pretty good going. Indeed, all but one of the Spice Girls made it to David Beckham’s 40th birthday celebration in Marrakech. And quite the party it seems too, if David Beckham’s Instagram feed, which he started on the morning he turned the big 4-0, is anything to go by.
Other celebrities including Liv Tyler, David Blaine, and Gordon Ramsay were there too, and the morning after the night before at the Amanjena resort he photographed himself being given some kind of facial by daughter Harper.
His first Instagram shot was of Beckham looking directly into the camera, in bed. If Instagram had a filter called “smoulder” it would have been customized in this shot. Another Instagram takes the viewer through Beckham’s stellar footballing career at Manchester United, and for England. Off the pitch, his great body and good looks meant he was a shoo-in for becoming an underwear model, which to anyone who desires men’s bodies was a most excellent thing.
It was his marriage to Victoria Beckham that made them both the most famous couple in Britain, and later one of the most famous couples in the pop-cultural world: there was the fantastically extravagant house, nicknamed Beckingham Palace, the couple’s ‘thrones,’ matching outfits, friendships with Tom Cruise and other Hollywood types, and Beckham becoming Britain’s most high-profile ‘metrosexual’ man: wearing a sarong, and delighting in showing off his body, welcoming his gay fans’ appreciation (long before footballers did that thing), and just generally being both a sex symbol, super father, and apparently decent, grounded, human being.
So, happy birthday to the Becks, and please continue to smoulder on Instagram.
David Beckham Bodywear via H&M
David Beckham smiles at his birthday party with wife Victoria.
via Instagram
"Thanks to my beautiful wife for such an amazing day," Beckham posted after his birthday bash.
via Instagram
Spice Girls, plus Eva Langoria, reunited at Beckham's 40th.
via Instagram
A still of sleeping Beckham from Sam Taylor-Wood's "David."
via Youtube
In one of his few publicly shaming moments, Beckham is sent off during England's World Cup second-round match against Argentina in 1998.
Reuters
Rebecca Loos, who allegedly had an affair with Beckham in 2004.
Metrosexual man at play: David and Victoria Beckham attend The 'Versace Club' Gala Party In London in 1999.
Justin Goff\UK Press via Getty Images
Beckham, center, in his early football days.
via Instagram
Toddler Beckham with his mother Sandra.
via Facebook
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