The rain is relentless outside an east London warehouse when a towering set of mechanical gates opens onto a British photoshoot that is drawing to a close. A 1983 BMW E30 waits in the garage for its moment in the spotlight. Entering the driver’s seat of the pillar-box-red convertible, wearing a black wool coat over a butter-yellow henley, a pale blue shirt messily tucked into charcoal-grey slacks, is England’s talisman, Jude Bellingham: the pride of the West Midlands, the nation’s golden boy, Real Madrid’s enigmatic attacking midfielder. He poses for the camera, one hand on the wheel, big brown eyes gazing out the window, heart-throb mode at full throttle.
It’s a convincing scene, although here’s the truth of it: Bellingham can’t actually drive. “There’s loads of things I don’t know how to do,” he says, Brummie to the max and a little bashful, now back in his own clothes – a soft grey tracksuit, a crisp white Louis Vuitton T-shirt and pristine sky-blue Adidas Sambas.
No matter, there’s plenty that he can. This is the man – still only 23 years old – who, the night before we met, I watched stride onto the green grass of Wembley, winning his 60th international cap as England beat Czechia three nil, with nearly 80,000 fans bellowing “!” in adoration. (A woman sitting behind me cried when he was subbed off in the 72nd minute.) Three days earlier, England won seven nil against Croatia, with Bellingham assisting three goals and scoring one of his own. His entire career has been organised around the next fixture, the next training session, the next flight. Understandably, there hasn’t been much time to squeeze in driving lessons.
Particularly not this year. It may not have come home, but the 2026 World Cup proved monumental for England. (Finishing third, it was the country’s best result in the tournament since lifting the trophy in 1966.) For an already-famous Bellingham, he emerged as a global phenomenon. “The World Cup, for me, was probably the best experience I’ve had in my life, full stop,” he says now the photoshoot has wrapped, lounging on a velvet orange sofa in the location’s unlikely -esque-looking office. “The football was incredible, but also being in the States and seeing the England fans travel out, singing ‘Wonderwall’…” They sang “Hey Jude” too, I can’t resist pointing out. “Yep, ‘Hey Jude’…” He raises his hands – guilty as charged. “I can picture the camera flicking to David Beckham and he was singing it.” The disbelief lingers. He remembers these moments so vividly because: “While I was in it, I really made the conscious decision to enjoy this. It doesn’t come around very often. It’s rare.”
For a month, the Three Lions made their way through a campaign of nerve, drama and improbable heroics, with Bellingham at the centre of the action. And yet, in the months leading up to the World Cup, his place in the England squad became a talking point. While recovering from shoulder and hamstring injuries, and working through a frustrating season with Real Madrid, some pundits went so far as to question his inclusion entirely. Needless to say, it was a slight he spent the summer disavowing, to dramatic effect.
On the pitch, Bellingham has a way of making himself the centre of things. In person, the confidence is still there, but the edges are far softer: he meets your eye, gives considered answers and listens closely. So closely, in fact, that when someone on the other side of the room is rustling a sweet wrapper, he breaks off to ask for quiet – he wants to give our chat his full attention.
In truth, there was some trepidation among the team in the run-up to the shoot. This is Bellingham’s first-ever glossy magazine cover, a fact that’s not lost on him (or us). He’d been the talk of the office for the entire summer. Do you know how long, I ask him, we’ve been trying to pin you down? “Really?” he says, genuinely shocked. “I don’t believe ya. I didn’t see those emails…” he says, smiling, looking at his mum, Denise, across the room, jokingly accusing her of hiding ’s somewhat feverish correspondence. In footballing circles, Denise is almost as legendary as her son these days, but while to the uninitiated she might seem like the ultimate football mum, here on set she is warm and funny, simply a mother looking out for her son, scouring the rails of clothes to see what plans to put her boy in.
And we needn’t have worried about Jude. “It feels like a good time now to open up and show people a bit more of me,” he says. In front of the camera, all 6ft 1in of him is – as the kids say – locked in. Then, between shots, he’s a golden retriever, eating snacks (“How much does a Freddo cost now?”) and joking with his manager, Lewis, in the studio kitchen about the oversized party hat he has bought him for his birthday. Granted, he finds some of the looks “a bit rogue, a bit out-there”, but he’s game.
What really shines through, on or off the pitch, is that famous focus. Take England’s round-of-16 match against Mexico in July. The home side had the crowd, the atmosphere and that infamous altitude on their side; England, meanwhile, were up against one of the tournament’s most formidable opponents, in a stadium steeped in football history, which also happened to be more than 7,000ft above sea level. There were journalists walking the stands, Bellingham says, trying to test how thin the air would get. Then there was the time difference. For those of us watching back home – bleary-eyed on a Monday morning – it was 2am by the time kick-off finally came around. “I think there were record views on ,” Bellingham remembers hearing, the BBC merrily broadcasting the game show in the run-up to kick-off. “I saw a video of someone talking about how life peaked when England played Mexico.” The smile returns. “I’ve seen a lot of people say, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever had a night when I was so happy and so proud to be English.’”
Modern footballers are asked to be a great many things: athletes, celebrities, brands, activists, public property. But Bellingham seems to embrace football’s swagger and bravado without being bound by its more problematic codes – and he’s always invested in the fight.
Vintage Adidas top, Ebay. Striped rugby shirt, Polo Ralph Lauren. Pinstripe trousers and leather belt, Ralph Lauren Purple Label
Never more so, it turned out, than when a World Cup rolled around; when the possibility of a team (and a country) can really start to mean something. Not to sound hyperbolic, but in the ceaseless heat of last summer, in pub gardens and front rooms, in a blissful reprieve from culture wars and doomscrolling, something like optimism began to seize the nation. As Bellingham and the Three Lions found their feet – for a moment, at least – so did we.
It’s hard to believe that a young JB had little interest in the beautiful game. He spent much of his early childhood in the picturesque market town of Stourbridge, just outside of Birmingham, more likely to be playing British Bulldog with his friends. Or making daisy chains for his mum, a former HR professional. Or watching his dad, Mark, turn out for an array of non-league teams across the country. Bellingham Snr, a former police officer, was a prolific goalscorer, netting around 700 times during his semi-professional career. He desperately wanted young Jude to join the fray.
And yet: “As soon as the football came out,” Bellingham remembers, “I wasn’t interested. I didn’t want to get kicked, I didn’t want to kick anyone – just leave me to my daisy chains.” Then his younger brother, Jobe – now 21 and a midfielder in Germany for Borussia Dortmund – took an interest and something changed. That, he says, is when he caught the bug. By seven he had joined Birmingham City academy; by 16 he was playing for the club proper. The day of his first match he beat club legend Trevor Francis’s record to make the side’s youngest ever professional debut. It was a landmark moment for a boy representing his childhood club – a loyalty he clearly still holds dear. (When he discovers I am a die-hard Aston Villa fan – the Blues’ fiercest local rivals – he looks genuinely crestfallen. “That is so disappointing,” he says, shaking his head.)
Meanwhile, there was school to contend with. “I was very talkative,” he recalls of his classroom manner. He was bubbly, eager to get to know people and, by his own admission, “probably a little bit cheeky with the teachers… I asked a lot of questions.” But he was hardly a troublemaker.
His parents had made their expectations clear: if he wasn’t doing well at school, he couldn’t
play football, so impishness sat alongside accountability. “It was always a priority to make sure the work was done.”
A promising debut season with the Blues meant everyone wanted a piece of him, as clubs spanning Europe circled in the hope of luring the Brummie prodigy away. When Borussia Dortmund came knocking in 2020 with a reported £25 million offer – a then record fee for any 17-year-old – the German club won the race against the likes of Manchester United, Bayern Munich and Chelsea. Bellingham left home (Birmingham City would later retire his shirt number), bypassing the Premier League for Europe, and headed to the Bundesliga to follow up on Dortmund’s reputation for nurturing young talent. So it proved. In 2023 Real Madrid called. That June he made the move to La Liga, in a deal worth up to £115 million, to take up the mantle as their new number five, following in the footsteps of one of his heroes, Zinedine Zidane. In his first season the Spanish giants did the double, winning La Liga and the Champions League. It’s been his home ever since.
Herringbone tweed coat, Polo Ralph Lauren. Wool sweater, Wales Bonner. Cotton shorts, Townwear, at Dover Street Market. Belt, Ralph Lauren Purple Label
His favourite thing about Madrid? “Playing with Real Madrid,” he replies, without hesitation, though he goes on to say he loves the city and its many colours. “Even when it rains in Madrid, it’s a bit more, I don’t know…” he trails off, searching for his next word, as if English is now his second language. “Graceful?” He started taking Spanish lessons for five months after moving to the city, determined not to be another Brit abroad who masters “” and “” then calls it a day. “I think a big part of it is being confident enough to just speak,” he says of his adventures in Spanish. “You know you’re going to get stuff wrong, and you’re probably not going to sound exactly right, [but if] people know what you’re talking about, they’ll probably think: ‘Fair play for trying.’”
“I do like being dressed up,” says Jude Bellingham. “It’s a nice change to the football stuff, for sure.”
The fascination with Bellingham is easy enough to understand. There is, of course, the face that launched a thousand fan edits, inspiring countless slow-motion videos across the internet. Then the athleticism that can stop even football’s most fair-weather fans in their tracks. But that appeal extends well beyond the pitch. With 56 million Instagram followers and every brand falling at his feet, of his commercial choices he says: “I’ve been fortunate in trying to be selective.” He has become a fashion-world regular, freshly minted as the face (and body) of Calvin Klein underwear with a campaign reveal that sent the internet into a tizzy, and making his debut on the front row at Paris Fashion Week in 2023 at Louis Vuitton’s spring/summer menswear show, alongside Beyoncé and Jay-Z. A year later, he was named a “friend of the house”. “An honour,” he says – and a full-circle moment for a teen who was first a customer at the Vuitton concession at Selfridges in Birmingham’s Bullring.
It’s undeniable that he wears clothes with an ease and flair that is not always baked into a sportsman’s skill set. On today’s shoot, he faces the camera in nothing but a Townwear trench coat, a pair of cerulean socks and Calvin Klein boxers, smouldering; then he’s statuesque in vintage Adidas. “I do like being dressed up,” he says, stretching his sculpted arms. “It’s a nice change to the football stuff, for sure.”
There is his character too. Bellingham has a knack for winning people over in ways that often have nothing to do with football. At the World Cup, he was one of the only players to acknowledge and speak with Manu Gutiérrez, a Venezuelan journalist with cerebral palsy, and offer a message of solidarity – in Spanish – to Venezuelans following an earthquake in the country. The clip promptly went viral. Meanwhile, new fans were thrilled to discover his years-long bromance with Norway and Manchester City’s Erling Haaland, his former Dortmund teammate. It made for compelling viewing when the pair met as quarter-final opponents. “He’s such a good guy,” Haaland said of Bellingham – who scored both of England’s goals that day – in the post-match interview. After England’s third-place play-off against France, teammate and childhood friend Morgan Rogers had to help Jude, looking momentarily like a tiny lost kid, find his family in the stands. As his eyes alight on them, a grin breaks out on his face – the moment was pure Hallmark magic.
In fact, family is his anchor. He lights up telling stories of kicking ball with his brother or escaping to Jamaica to bond with his relatives on the island while recovering from his shoulder surgery last summer. The Jamaican and Irish roots he carries from his mum’s and dad’s sides respectively matter a great deal to him. “It’s all important in terms of your make-up,” he says. “There’ll be little characteristics that you don’t even realise you get from certain places and you have to be grateful for all of them.”
Away from football, Bellingham is drawn to the icons of yesteryear. His style takes cues from the 1960s and ’70s (“formal, classy suits and streetwear merges quite well. I like to play with that”), formed by a love of old music and film (Elvis, Michael Caine, James Bond) inherited in part from his parents. Indeed, it’s Elvis who is soundtracking this shoot – a suggestion from his mum. “He was cool. The girls loved him. He could dance. He just had an aura that could fill stadiums and his music was amazing,” Bellingham says of the appeal. (His favourite Elvis song? “Love Me”. Will he sing it? “Not a chance.”)
No one is more aware than Bellingham that his is “a short career”. Last year he launched JB5, his own social media app, in which fans get glimpses of his life on and off the pitch. A smart move, though one he approached with caution. “Does it look like I’m a bit up my own arse? Is it a bit cocky?” he remembers thinking when the idea was first discussed. The answer, eventually, was that maybe it would be a healthier way to connect with supporters than the usual social-media circus. “I find Instagram and Twitter [sic], and places like that, can be so negative, man,” he says. “It’s not a nice place to want to share directly what you’ve got going on.” The point of the app is to bring people a little closer. “If someone gets the app, it’s because they want to see what I’m doing.” And if they don’t? “Then that’s absolutely fine. If people aren’t interested, I can understand. I’m not that interesting!”
Connecting with fans is a balancing act. “I think fans put players on a pedestal sometimes and I never really want to be seen like that. I’d rather be seen as someone who is a human being first,” he says, resting his arms on his knees. His ideal downtime is pretty simple. “I like being in the company of my friends and family, having a coffee, going for a walk.” When his schedule allows, there are dinners with his close crew, maybe a glass of wine. But even popping for a coffee in Madrid requires some planning; he tends to gravitate towards spots further out of the city. “You’re always going to get recognised, but you’re a bit safer in terms of not getting mobbed and stuff like that.” Sometimes he might not feel like signing 50 autographs, but he still tries to be as generous as he can, especially with the legions of kids that follow him around. “If they can get a picture with you, they’ll be buzzing for however long and, really, it’s five seconds of your time,” he says.
Switching off from football remains a work in progress. “I felt like, at times last season, it was definitely consuming me and it was making me really tense and stressed,” he says. “And I started speaking to somebody who helped me a lot with that and how to manage that kind of stuff.” It’s helped a lot, though he does still struggle, he says. “It’s when I come home and I’ve had four games in 14 days, it’s like all I want to do is my recovery for long enough that by the time I’m finished I can get into bed. Do you know what I mean?”
Naturally, being in the public eye comes with obligations too. “I didn’t get into football because I wanted to be a role model,” he says, “but when we talk about responsibility, that’s what it means to me.” The admiration comes with a level of scrutiny that few people his age have to consider. But on the pitch, he says, sometimes it’s hard to remember your job as a role model because of the stakes. “This is my livelihood. This is what I get paid to do. It’s my job as well as a hobby. A lot of people are investing a lot of money in me. The fans are very dedicated and spend a lot of money to come and support the team,” he says, almost rhapsodical. “You can’t just behave how you want but then still represent a city or a country every time you wear their shirt, because you are inspiring [someone]. Whether you like it or not, you are looked up to by the next generation. I prefer to see it as a privilege. I’ve always said that, off the pitch, I want to be a gentleman.”
A recent conversation with Real Madrid manager José Mourinho has stuck with him: “When [Mourinho] was coaching at AS Roma a few years ago, a kid at training had cut three holes in the back of his socks. Mourinho went over to him and said, ‘Why are you doing that?’ and he was like, ‘Bellingham does it. It’s meant to relieve pressure in your calf.’ And Mourinho was like: ‘Kid, you’re nine. You don’t have calves.’”
For someone who has spent much of his life being told how mature he is, Bellingham is quick to set the record straight. “I feel mature in a football context because I’ve played nearly 400 games, but in a life context I don’t feel that mature now, to be honest,” he says. Football he can do – this man has already been nominated for the Ballon D’Or multiple times – but there are other, more mundane skills he has yet to master. “I can’t cook, I can’t drive… I’m good at what I do, but everything else? Not that great. I rely on my friends, my family to help me do stuff – chef, cleaner, mum, whoever else. That’s where I’m at. I work hard every day and all day, and then when I get home, I’ve probably neglected learning how to do some of the more basic things. But there’ll be a time and a place for that, I’m sure.”
Bellingham is good chat for a sportsman – articulate, assured, generous with his answers. Did he have media training? “Everyone’s got this perception that I had a load of PR training when I was younger and it’s like, I was in the first team at the age of 16. I don’t know what people know about academies, but you don’t do PR training at 10 years old.
“I’ve always felt quite comfortable talking,” he continues. “At school it was something I was interested in, debating and giving my opinion on things.” He thinks carefully now that his words travel so much further. “I don’t want to speak to just be heard,” he says. “I want to be understood. I want fans to get a better feeling of a game or get a glimpse of things through my eyes, but with detail and not just the, kind of, easy answers.”
Nor is he naive about the limits of this frankness – some subjects are better kept private. Take his reported relationship with Ashlyn Castro, the smiley, glossy-haired Californian model and influencer, for instance. Since the pair were first linked in early 2025, glimpses of them have been fleeting: Castro in the stands at a football match or identical holiday photos pieced together by eagle-eyed followers on Instagram. And who can blame them for keeping quiet? The British public’s scoresheet for handling WAGs is hardly spotless.
In “terms of the football stuff”, though, Bellingham tries to “be as precise as I can”. During the 2024 Euros, as England’s early performances drew criticism and unsubstantiated rumours of “rifts between players” and “attitude problems”, David Beckham was among those who got in touch with Bellingham, telling him to ignore the noise. Another one-time English superstar transplanted to Real Madrid, his words carried weight for Jude. “Sometimes it’s not the message, but it’s the messenger that makes it more valuable,” Bellingham says. “You’ve got someone on your side who knows what the score is.”
Ian Wright has been another guiding light. The Arsenal and England forward contacted Bellingham when he was going through “a tough time with some stuff in the media”. Wright’s message was simple: “Be ready.” Bellingham responded: “For what?” “I’m worried for Jude simply because he’s somebody that they can’t control,” he said publicly, as some corners of the media branded Bellingham “divisive” and questioned his place in England’s World Cup squad. As a trailblazing Black footballer who has long experienced and spoken out about racism in the game, Wright knows something of the territory that can come with being Black, brilliant and unwilling to shrink yourself.
Wright still checks up on him today. “I always get really nervous when he messages me,” Bellingham says. “I always think, ‘What have they said about me now?’” But their relationship has a lighter side too. “I always see him at the England games and will give him a hug or blow him a kiss,” Bellingham says.
But for now there is a plane waiting to take him home to Madrid, training tomorrow and the Bernabéu to play at the weekend. His mum slings his Louis Vuitton Real Madrid duffel over her shoulder while Bellingham says his goodbyes to everyone in the room. For all the talk, the awards, the sponsorships and the fanfare, there is still so much ahead of him – more records to break, more silverware to lift, perhaps an England armband to earn, to say nothing of that driving test to pass – though he’s conscious of the weight that comes with being so closely watched. “You make mistakes, you own up to them and you try to learn from them,” he says. At the end of the day, he continues, the megawatt smile descending on his features one last time, “I don’t ever want people to think that I’m perfect.”
Main look: Wool coat, cotton shirt, cashmere/silk henley, pinstripe trousers, and monogram belt, Louis Vuitton Men’s. Grooming: Paul Gomez. Tailor: Michelle Warner. Set design: Andy Hillman. Production: Partner Films. Film process and scanning: Bayeux. Digital artwork: Eursa Major