David Beckham shaved off his famous blond curtains hair style to “rebel” against Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson.
The 48-year-old former footballer has opened up about his changing image in his new Netflix documentary ‘Beckham’ and revealed his most drastic change happened during his stint at the Premier League side in 2000 when he decided to lop off his hair for a buzz cut after having a fiery row with his coach during a training session.
In the new documentary, Beckham said: “I had a hairdresser at the time called Tyler, I said to him ‘I’m gonna cut my hair,’ and he said ‘Are you sure? You really want to do that?'”
It led to a tense stand-off with Ferguson after the footballer turned up wearing a hat. Beckham’s former teammate Ole Gunnar Solskjær revealed: “Before the game, David had a hat on and Sir Alex asked him to take his hat off. [David said] ‘No!'”
Ferguson added: “The stubbornness! But oh well.”
Gary Neville also weighed in on the hair row, revealing Beckham knew he was going to get in trouble for cutting his locks off. He said: ‘Come on, you’re asking for a b*********, you’re asking for trouble, he knew that it would p*** sir Alex off, so why do it?”
The change of style overshadowed the team’s performance on the pitch and led to many schools in the UK banning children from copying their idol’s new look.
However, Beckham went on to insist he didn’t change his hair to make headlines, adding: ” ‘I never did it to create attention, I’m not that person,” while his wife Victoria explained: “David starts going from a boy to a man, and it’s only natural you’re going to start flexing your muscles right? And don’t all kids rebel against their parents?'”
The four-part documentary lifts the lid on Beckham’s rise to fame as well as his relationship with wife Victoria, who revealed her husband was left “clinically depressed” following the vicious backlash over his sending off during England’s clash with Argentina at the 1998 World Cup.
She said: “I mean, the absolute hate, the public bullying, to another level. He was depressed, absolutely clinically depressed. I still want to kill these people.”
The Spice Girls singer went on to slam former England manager Glenn Hoddle – alleging he did nothing to “protect” David after the incident.
She said: “Glenn Hoddle didn’t come out and try and protect David. And how old was David, 23? You’re a kid at 23. And Glenn Hoddle was a man. Well, I wouldn’t even call him a man actually … he was an older person.”