Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: King Charles III, Rod Stewart, and David Beckham walk into a palace…
Oh, wait, that really happened. On Tuesday night, Charles hosted the inaugural King’s Foundation awards ceremony at St. James’ Palace, celebrating the work of the charity that he established in 1990. Additional notable attendees included Sienna Miller, Naomi Campbell, Edward Enniful, and more.
Rocker Stewart, who was knighted in 2016 by the late Queen Elizabeth, spoke onstage at the gala, getting laughs from the audience for his playful jabs at fellow attendees, including a nudge at newly installed King’s Foundation ambassador Beckham.
“Penny [Lancaster] and I are so honored to be ambassadors for the King’s Trust,” Stewart said, before being corrected by the same Penny, his wife, about the group’s actual name. “Foundation, my apologies. Also, I’m wonderfully honored to be a Knight, and David, yours is coming soon.”
Beckham, the former captain of England’s national soccer team and chronicler of wife Victoria Beckham’s former family vehicles and Spice Girls reunions, was presented with an OBE, Order of the British Empire, in 2003. Victoria, too, is an OBE as of 2017.
According to the U.K.’s Mirror, Stewart told reporters that he made the joke knowing that David Beckham could take it.
“Someone has to lighten the atmosphere in the room, you know—he’s a good sport,” he said.
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