TV host James Corden pulled a hilarious prank on David Beckham for Monday’s episode of The Late Late Show .
According to E! News , the LA Galaxy kicked off its 24th season earlier this month by unveiling a statue of Beckham, who played for the team for six seasons. Before the big reveal, Corden decided to have a little fun with him by switching out the real statue for a fake one that was definitely not flattering.
To pull off the prank really well, James’ props department created a fake figure that was both realistic but at the same time, completely terrible. He asked his team to put a bodacious bum and long chin on the phony figure. After two months of hard work, the team brought the statue to Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California to unveil it to David.
To throw Beckham off before he saw the bad figure, Corden hired a bunch of actors to annoy him and placed a bunch of hidden cameras around the space. Not only that, he had an LA Galaxy camera crew follow Beckham under the influence that it was all for online content however it was all for the prank.
One of the actors purposely called him Dave because he knew it would annoy Beckham.
“You know, it’s a special moment that I’ll be able to share with friends, family. So, I’m excited,” David said before the big reveal.
Once Beckham saw the botched figure, he wasn’t happy.
“It’s slightly different than what it was when I saw it in Chicago, though,” he said.
“My wife’s coming over. It’s lucky my kids are not coming over because if my kids were to see this, I think they’d just cry—to be honest.”
David tried to stay as calm as possible but you could see in his face he was furious.
A forklift was used to move the statue, however, it dropped it and shattered it into several pieces.
“You’ve probably done me a favor there,” David said carelessly.
In the end, Corden came out and surprised Beckham. Without saying it was all a prank, soccer legend David already knew it had all been a setup once James appeared and starting laughing and swearing. He couldn’t believe it had all been a joke.
The full video of this stunt has been uploaded to the show’s official YouTube page and has achieved half a million views in less than a day. It is currently trending on YouTube.