Instigator
Banned
The fake Posh may just be hotter than the original...
And if you're interested in this story, you can get the backstory of the lookalikes:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/minifakes/story/0,16335,1544875,00.html
A LOOKALIKE couple who got a sports car, jewellery and a table at a top restaurant by posing as the Beckhams, have provoked legal action from their targets.
David and Victoria Beckham say their reputation has been damaged by the "blagging" spree embarked on by Andy Harmer and Camilla Shadbolt, two professional lookalikes.
Lawyers for the couple threatened to sue the producers of a film on the lookalikes, due to be shown in Britain on Thursday.
The ring-ins have enjoyed a decade as the "rent-a-Becks", copying the couple's hairstyles and tattoos.
When David Beckham signed a £128 million ($309 million) deal to join the LA Galaxy soccer club, the lookalikes decided to test the couple's cultural impact. They found the Beckham brand is hot property in Hollywood.
To the dismay of the real Beckhams, the doppelgangers ran riot: they persuaded a Lamborghini garage to let them test-drive a $720,000 sports car, they left exclusive boutique H.Lorenzo with a $21,000 string of black pearls after assistants told them they could have "whatever they want" free (one assistant even revealed she had served Victoria Beckham two weeks before, and they were ushered into the VIP area of a nightclub favoured by Paris Hilton).
But the couple's luck ran out when they tried to drop in on a restaurant popular with Hollywood stars.
In the film, the couple arrive at The Ivy in a stretch Humvee, surrounded by paparazzi.
Waiters clear a space for the "Beckham party", which incorporates a fake feng shui expert and an acting coach.
Minutes later they are turfed out after the manager, who has greeted the real thing, spots they are fakes and threatens to call the police.
The producers of The Beckhams Go To Hollywood say the documentary is a harmless look at the couple's celebrity status.
But 19 Management, which looks after the Beckhams, is concerned that the image of "celebrity freeloaders" could damage the couple.
A spokesman for Sky One said: "We have received a legal warning on behalf of the Beckhams. But we intend to screen the program as planned."
And if you're interested in this story, you can get the backstory of the lookalikes:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/minifakes/story/0,16335,1544875,00.html
It's hard enough to stay sane and together when you're actually Posh and Becks, but apparently the strain of not being Posh and Becks can be just as gruelling.
At first, it began with people telling Andy Harmer that he had a resemblance to David Beckham. Then Beckham's star began to rise - first a famous sending off, and then a Spicy new relationship. Suddenly people were not only telling Harmer that he looked a bit like Becks: they were offering him money for it. After a while, someone noticed that Andy's girlfriend, Camilla Shadbolt, looked - in a certain light - like Posh Spice, and that maybe, if she'd get her hair cut, she'd look even more like her. So she did.
"And I hated it" she says. "I bought long wigs to wear when I went out with my friends. They were itchy and heavy, but anything was better than that haircut." It wasn't because people would confuse her with the real Victoria Beckham, though. "No, I just really hated it".
After a while, when their relationship turned into their job, Andy and Camilla broke up. But Posh and Becks didn't, so the pair - who remain good friends - carried on regardless.
Personal relationships have not been the only things to suffer. Camilla's hair has not done well out of the whole experience. While Victoria Beckham may have a brand new look to match each clean pair of underwear, she clearly doesn't think enough about the poor people who make a living out of copying each fake nail faux pas and hair extension heresy. Shadbolt's hair has been up, been down, been long and been short, curly, flat, big, bad, and if there's only one thing she seems to regret about her Posh career, it's the effect it's had on her barnet.
Andy hasn't had to go the whole way. He's had the haircuts, obviously. He's worn the skirts, and he's had to keep himself fit, but the tattoos? "Well, the only really important one is the one that people can see, on the back of the neck", says the 26-year-old. "So I've got that one, obviously". What, you actually got the whole thing tattooed on? "No, no... I drew it out and had it made into a post office stamp. I just cover it in ink and roll it on before each event". The easy way out? On the contrary. "It's hell to get it straight", he says, "and if you start sweating, it starts running down your back in no time at all."
Andy seems to have grasped the opportunities of being Beckham. He's improved his footballing skills in an attempt to emulate the England captain more completely. "When you turn up at some event, you can hear the kids whispering 'is it him?'. Then you do a couple of tricks, and that seems to prove it to them... that's great", he says. During a visit to Japan, someone found out he had a band back home - and thus, bizarrely, he released an album in Japan. Their first gig was in a HMV Megastore, and led to a programme all about him on Sky One. These are things that don't really happen to normal people.
Camilla, now 24, is amazed at the opportunities that have been given to them - the travel, the parties, the fact that for seven years, they've made full time jobs out of this. But for her, it is only a job. She turns her impersonation on and off like a mask, and although it's a weird career, it's a job all the same.
Recently, though, work has started to drop off. It began when the famous couple moved to Madrid and weren't in the public eye so much. Then, when there were allegations of infidelity, Andy and Camilla were offered jobs that seemed cruel - photo sessions with Rebecca Loosalikes, and personal appearances where they were supposed to look angry with each other. "They've been our living for seven years," says Camilla. "Why would we want to piss them off?"
But what do you do when you don't want to be lookalikes any more? Camilla left her art course to be Posh in the first place: back then, she wanted to work in the Jim Henson Creature Shop. She'd like to go back to art again, but right now enjoys the occasional appearance, working in a bar and looking after her 4-year-old son.
Andy has a new band, The Ryes, and they're doing quite well - and not because he looks like someone else, but because people like their music. That's got to be a good feeling, after years of people wanting you for your ability to not be yourself. It's got to be alarming when the sign of your best work is that people don't think you're there at all.
"I was in Bend It Like Beckham," he says. Really? I could have sworn that was the man himself. "Yes," he sighs. "That's sort of the point".
