Joe Lycett suffered anxiety over David Beckham stunt, with family and neighbours begging him not to shred £10,000-Tori Brazier-Entertainment – Metro

The comic has opened up on how the stress of the attention affected him (Picture: Twitter/Joe Lycett)

Joe Lycett has revealed his ‘anxiety really spiked’ during his money-shredding stunt over David Beckham’s lucrative Qatar World Cup deal, as he was receiving messages from neighbours, friends and family begging him not to go ahead with it.

The comic said it made him feel ‘like a snail without its shell’ attracting so much attention from people he knew as he attempted to get the footballer to react due to his contradictory status as a gay icon.

Homosexuality is illegal in the Middle Eastern nation – and punishable by up to seven years in prison – and there have been questions over the deaths of local workers helping to build stadiums for the sporting event.

Lycett initially claimed he would shred £10,000 of his own money if the former Manchester United player didn’t end his controversial involvement with the event – but would donate the already withdrawn cash to LGBTQ+ charities if he did.

He has since explained on Lorraine last week that he wanted to convince David Beckham to speak out and spark a change in Qatar’s laws.

When he didn’t hear back, the TV star went ahead with the shredding, but later revealed the money was fake and he had, in fact, made the donations.

Joe publically threatened to shred thousands of pounds, before seemingly following throough, much to the shock of his neighbours (Picture: Steve Meddle/REX/Shutterstock)

The comedian was trying to get David Beckham’s reaction after the gay icon accepted a sponsorship deal from a country where homosexuality is still illegal (Picture: Eddie Keogh – The FA/The FA via Getty Images)

Discussing the toll the deception had taken on him, Lycett shared that it was more the messages from people he knew that got to him than any social media trolling, which he was ‘more than braced for, because I get a fair share of that without pretending to shred 10 grand anyway, and most the time from people with football shirts as their profile pictures’.

‘It’s more that I was getting messages from my neighbours and friends and family who were saying, “Please don’t do it” or Josie Long, who I love, who is a brilliant stand up,’ he explained on The Line-Up with Shaun Keaveny podcast.

‘When I announced it, she sent me this article about The KLF [who burned £1 million as performance art in 1994] saying they regretted it and she said, “Just please don’t do it” and I just said, “I’m not going to do it, it was all planned” or whatever, I just told her, and she said, “I always knew there’s something extra with you, Joe”.’

He added: ‘But I had friends who were like super concerned about it, thinking I’d misjudged it. And I didn’t want to tell too many people about it because I didn’t want it to leak that I wasn’t actually going to do it.’

The 34-year-old also shared a message he had received from one neighbour after the stunt, saying she was ‘shocked’ and ‘couldn’t believe’ he’d destroyed the money during the current cost-of-living crisis.

When the comedian reassured her all was not it seemed, she reportedly responded with “you haven’t destroyed it have you, you little b***er”.

Lycett also revealed that a friend of his who is also a neighbour was getting messages from his friends branding Joe ‘a real d**khead’, leading him to ‘feel the weight’ of those around him who were trying to defend him too.

Regardless, the Joe Lycett’s Got Your Back star said he was ‘glad that I did it the way I did’, even if part of him ‘still wonders if it would have been more impactful if I actually shredded’.

Joe said he ‘felt the weight’ of others defending him before he revealed the shredding was a stunt and he had made charity donations (Picture: Matt Crossick)

Elsewhere in the interview, he shared that the original plan was to create a statute of Beckham painted in the pride colours, which he would destroy as the threat, before someone told him James Corden had previously done a statute of the retired athlete for a skit, which killed the idea for him.

Other celebrities including Will Young also slammed Beckham for accepting the deal, said to be worth millions of pounds.

On Monday, Lycett also hit out at the Football Association, accusing it of only ‘pretending to be allies of the LGBT+ community’.

He described Beckham as a ‘perfect emblem’ for brands who ‘pretend to be allies of the LGBT community until it’s inconvenient for them.’

He continued to Times Radio: ‘I would add the FA into that group. I had some conversations… they directed me to their statement about the One Love armband. We know where we got to with that, don’t we?’

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At the start of the World Cup, both the England and Welsh men’s teams announced they would wear the anti-discrimination One Love armbands.

However, when they were threatened with sporting sanctions by FIFA, both FAs walked back on their initial plans to the disappointment of many.

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