David Beckham's squeaky-clean image as a British cultural icon has taken a battering following the leaking of expletive-strewn emails in which he apparently raged about not receiving a knighthood. The former England football captain is said to have sworn in emails to his PR team after being told he would not be made "Sir David" by Queen Elizabeth II because of concerns about his tax affairs.
A spokesman for the 41-year-old said the emails, released by the Football Leaks website, were "hacked and doctored" to give a "deliberately inaccurate picture".
But there has been a backlash against Beckham from sections of Britain's tabloid media.
Monday's Daily Mail spoke of the "Shame of Saint Becks", with a columnist pronouncing him "a foul-mouthed, determined egotist" who had used charity work as part of an "increasingly desperate" bid for a knighthood.
Reports which emerged on Friday said the former Manchester United and Real Madrid star refused to put his own money into his humanitarian 7 Fund and tried to obtain reimbursement from the UN children's agency UNICEF for expenses met by his sponsors. Outspoken television host Piers Morgan told his 5.47 million Twitter followers the revelations were "sickening" and exposed Beckham as a "fraud". Beckham has not spoken publicly since the story broke, although he was pictured cradling his five-year-old daughter Harper on the Instagram account of his son, Brooklyn.
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