Jude Bellingham has dethroned Grealish because the England’s heartthrob

He became the most expensive British footballer of all time when he transferred to Real Madrid for a whopping £115 million last year.

And now, wunderkind Jude Bellingham has a new title – England’s most fanciable footballer.

The midfielder, 20, has dethroned fellow brummie Jack Grealish as the hearthrob of the Three Lions, after the Manchester City forward was dropped from Gareth Bale‘s squad.

Now the Real Madrid player, 20 – who will form part of England’s dream team at Euro 2024 – has appeared in a campaign for Kim Kardashian’s clothing and shapewear brand – opening himself up to a whole new legion of fans.

In a video, shared on the SKIMS Instagram account, Jude leaves barely anything to the imagination and can be seen sporting a pair of dark grey boxer shorts below well formed rippled abs.

Fans of the sportsman, who’s currently dating older Dutch model Laura Celia Valk, 25, have taken to X to express their awe at his physique, with some so astounded they’ve asked ‘is he even real?’

Teasing viewers with a bit of wordplay, Jude says in a video of the ad: ‘I’m Jude Bellingham. Everybody’s wearing SKIMS.’

Alongside the post, the brand wrote: ‘@JudeBellingham for SKIMS. Ahead of the Euros, the record-breaking England player sports our Mens underwear’. 

In the exciting clip the player can be seen showing off his football skills, but with his torso glistening and SKIMS shorts hugged tightly to his physique, all eyes were more likely on him than on his display of talents.

Questioning their eyes, one person wrote: ‘Is it a joke? Like is he even real?’ Short for breath, another added: ‘I gasped’. 

‘Lord help me with this one’ pleaded a third. The ad brought out the animal in one fan: ‘Jude bellingham partnered with SKIMS and I almost barked at my phone’.

Others have referred to the media mogul mother-of-four as a ‘genius’ for signing on the heartthrob as the new face of SKIMS. 

Commending Kim for her astute business skills, one person wrote: ‘Jude Bellingham for SKIMS. Great marketing once again!’ ‘Kim is a genius’ commented another. 

Elsewhere one person suggested they’d caught onto her ploy: ‘Kim knows what she’s doing’ they wrote.

The midfielder, thought to earn £220,000 a week at Real Madrid, also impressed fans on Instagram.

The post was quickly inundated with comments from Instagram users praising Kim for choosing Jude for her latest campaign. 

They wrote: ‘Kimberly you did not’… ‘She knew what she was doing’… ‘Oh Kimberly you genius’… ‘Queen of marketing’.

Others added: ‘We need a documentary on how y’all are securing everybody and their agent’… ‘Kimberly, you finally gave it to us!’ 

Jude has seen his celebrity rise and rise since signing for Real Madrid a year ago. 

His transfer to the Spanish giants caps an incredible rise, which began when he became Birmingham City’s youngest ever player at just 16.

His success is no doubt in part to his very supportive family.   Doting dad Mark, 48, is Jude’s manager – and brokered the deal with Real Madrid for Jude, acting as an intermediary between the Spanish club and Borussia Dortmund.

Meanwhile, Jude has said that his mum Denise, 55, is the key to his success, calling him calling her a ‘queen’.

Denise, as well as Mark, have acted as a grounding force for the midfield star while his early career has rocketed off to the heights of world football. 

‘The role my mum is playing is massive. I think at the minute it is probably the biggest role of anyone, even probably more than my coaches and managers, to be honest,’ he said in 2022.

In 2020, Bellingham signed for Borussia Dortmund for £22.5million following a breakout season with Championship and boyhood side Birmingham City.

Already loved so much by the Birmingham club and the wider city, Bellingham had his shirt number 22 retired despite just playing 44 games for the club in a fledgling career. 

But Birmingham’s love and admiration for Bellingham is understandable after standing out as one of England’s best players in the World Cup in 2022, a feat that will no doubt repeat at the Euros. 

A bridge in Birmingham is even set to be named after the break-out star.

But when others could have lost their head and fallen off track by the plaudits and glory, Bellingham has kept focus thanks to his parents.

Denise, who works in human resources, and his father Mark a former police sergeant and non-league footballer, were sure to keep their son grounded.

In 2020, when Denise moved with Bellingham to Germany, she left behind Mark, who stayed with their other son Jobe – also a professional footballer for Sunderland.

Both Bellingham and his mum Denise still live in a flat together, where she makes his bed and sometimes drives him to training.

Denise also manages her son’s financial affairs, allowing him to focus on football and not become distracted by the prestige and greed that can derail the careers of many young footballers.

But Bellingham also owes much of his success on the pitch to his father Mark, a retired non-league footballer.

Although Bellingham admitted he later grew to idolise the likes of Wayne Rooney, it was Bellingham senior’s action on the pitch that made him his first footballing hero.

Mark scored more than 700 goals in around 900 appearances, earning him the prestige of an English non-league Pelé.

He juggled stints at clubs including Leamington, Stourbridge and Sutton Coldfield Town with his day job as a sergeant with West Midlands Police.

Their father hung up his boots at the age of 41 in 2017 and is believed to have retired from the police. He declines to discuss his son’s achievements.

Jude told The Guardian in 2020 how his mother Denise took him to watch his father play: ‘It’s where I started to get that love for football. I think you can see in the way I play that I’ve watched the game from a young age.

‘That non-league style of toughness and being gritty when you need to be… I do think that comes from watching my dad play – even though he never tackled!’

Leamington FC chairman Jim Scott described Jude’s father as a ‘goal machine’, adding: ‘He was in great demand, a good player who was extremely dedicated, particularly when you consider his demanding career. [He] could have played at a higher level. You can see where Jude gets his talent from.’

Speaking about his dad to the FA in an interview, Bellingham said: ‘We talk about footballing heroes, and my dad was like my first.

‘When you go and watch him play every week in non-League, you know it’s not the Premier League or anything, but seeing the way that he played and the atmosphere, it made me fall in love with football so he was probably my first hero.

‘After the first few times of going, I’d start to pay a bit more attention to the games and stuff, the atmosphere and he’s scoring goals so you see him celebrating and stuff like that – you want that to be me.

‘Growing up, he’d always give me tips on what I could do and now it gets to a certain age and it sort of flips and that’s brilliant because we have that sort of relationship like father and son and then as I got older, like coach and player.’

Jude will also be supported by his very glamorous girlfriend Laura Celia Valk.

The Dutch beauty, 25, is a model, TikTok star, clothing designer and even a media consultant.

With more than half a million followers on Instagram, the star often treats followers to a glimpse of her glamorous lifestyle which more recently has include photos of sunny Madrid where her new flame Bellingham happens to have an apartment.

The model is so smitten with her footballer beau she can’t keep it to herself so the Euros this June may be the perfect stage for the young couple to make their public debut.

Born in the Netherlands on September 16, 1998, Laura is five years older than the Real Madrid midfielder she is believed to be dating.