David Beckham Was Too Famous for Calvin Klein Underwear Campaign, Designer Says

Soccer star has his own line at H&M

By Lily Harrison Sep 03, 2013 6:23 PMTags
David Beckham, H & MH & M

Was someone just too big for his britches? 

When Marc Jacobs interviewed Calvin Klein in the latest issue of Interview magazine, the denim mogul revealed that David Beckham's camp turned down an offer to have the soccer stud star in his underwear campaign.

Why? Well, according to Klein, because Becks' team claimed that he was "too popular" for the advertisements in his home country.

Apparently Beckham wasn't quite as comfortable making the leap from the soccer pitch into the modeling world in front of his fellow Brits just yet.

Oddly enough, however, Beckham's camp would've jumped onboard the campaign under one condition: that he only was in international campaigns and not in the U.K. version.

"You can have him for the rest of the world, but you can't have the UK because he's too popular," Klein said of the response he received from Beckham's people.

Klein was then forced to find another model for both the U.S. and U.K. markets to star alongside Russian beauty Natalia Vodianova.

The perfect choice? None other than Freddie Ljundberg, the now retired Swedish soccer stud who played for Arsenal back when he first stripped down to his designer skivvies.

Jump forward to 2007, Beckham starred in the skin-heavy underwear ads for Giorgio Armani. Interesting.

H & M

And in 2011, Becks announced that he was going to be launching a line of bodywear for men at retail giant, H&M.

As an awesome bonus, the father of four proudly models in his own campaigns. Shirtless and all, swoon!

After a few successful seasons, it seems that the end is nowhere in sight for the hunky athlete. He just unveiled his Fall 2013 line in a series of smoldering shots.