Soccer stalwart David Beckham has become the latest victim of a bizarre publicity stunt for Italian TV that saw a presenter making a grab for his testicles.
Elena Di Cioccio, who fronts popular Italian TV show Le Iene (The Hyenas), made an attempt to cop a feel of the soccer
star's crown jewels while he was interviewed outside a hotel in Milan.
Her mission? To see whether Becks "measured up" and lived up to his nickname 'Goldenballs' (as dubbed by his wife Victoria), and whether his appearance in those eye-popping Emporio Armani pants adverts is the real deal.
Becks, 34, was the panty poster boy for the Italian fashion house for two years, but was recently replaced by soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo.
The England midfielder, currently on loan at AC Milan, was thought to have benefited from a visit from the airbrush fairy to accentuate and enhance his manly assets in the sizzling underwear campaign - a claim that was vehemently denied by his camp.
Armed with a pair of rubber gloves, prankster Di Cioccio went in for the kill and gave Becks the shock of his life during the oddball stunt.
Moments before the stunt, she told viewers: "Off the pitch we have seen fascinating photographs of David Beckham in his underpants and seemingly very well endowed and even his wife says that he is well equipped and calls him Golden Balls," she said.
"Well the image may have slipped slightly as he has been replaced in the Armani campaign by a younger footballer, Cristiano Ronaldo, but we wanted to find out if he was as well endowed as the pictures suggest or if they were touched up."
She added: "I want to find out how big his testicles are!"
As Becks spoke to the press pack outside about how "incredible" the people of the city had been to him, Di Cioccio snuck past the camera crew and went in for the kill.
Glaring into the camera with an impish glint in her eye and flaunting her gloves (which she'd apparently donned in a back alley while perfecting her grabbing technique), she pounced.
A visibly shaken Becks recoiled and cast her a stony-faced look, before he was hustled back to the hotel, and batty Di Cioccio was dragged away.
Di Cioccio was then chased down the street yelling "E piccolo, Beckham" ("Beckham is small"), while still being filmed for her TV show.
"I touched it but it's small. David you have conned us all. What did you use cotton wool? It's all a trick," she declared.
A source (probably a fuming Posh) close to Becks insists Di Cioccio didn't get anywhere near his modesty.
"She didn't actually grab it, it was an attempt. She just got his trouser leg."
You can see a video of the weird incident below:
How humiliating. Poor bloke. Surely that constitutes as a sexual assault, no?
Interestingly, she hasn't been questioned by police. We can't help but wonder if the same would have happened if a male reporter had grabbed a woman inappropriately...
Not cool.
