CONNOR WICKHAM once “got beat up” by Drake’s bodyguards after asking him for a selfie.
The singer’s entourage were unhappy with the striker approaching him for a picture in the gym, according to former team-mate Jermain Defoe.
Wickham is said to have seen Drake whilst working out during a pre-season trip to Toronto with Sunderland.
Defoe recalled the incident on his Football Firsts podcast with Troy Deeney, claiming: “When I left Toronto and went to Sunderland the next pre-season they came back to play us.
“So when we went back with Sunderland to Toronto we had loads of free time. I remember being in my room, you know Connor Wickham?
“Everyone knows, when I signed for Toronto Drake phoned me. When we went back [to Toronto], I’m in my room and then Connor Whickham’s phoned me.
“He’s like, ‘JD, speak to your boy for me’. He got beat up in the gym. He said, ‘Bro Drake is in the gym so I go and take a picture.’ His bouncers obviously grabbed him up.
“I said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘I’m coming down’. So as I’ve come down to the lift he’s obviously gone. He’s fuming, he’s sulking in the bus.
“So I go and I see Drake, he’s eating the weights. So, I’m laughing, I say, ‘What happened?’ He said, ‘Nothing, this guy comes…’ I said, ‘Yeah, that’s one of the boys’. He goes, ‘Ah, I’m sorry man. Tell him we’ll take you out. Where do you want to go, bluh bluh bluh’.
“He said, ‘Are you here with the team?’ I said, ‘Yeah’. It was the funniest thing. And then I go to the bus and I saw [Whickham], he’s like a little kid.
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“[He said] ‘He grabbed me up. All I wanted was a picture’. I said, ‘Connor, you can’t do that though. That’s Drake. In Toronto you can’t just approach him and try to get a picture’.”
Defoe and Wickham played together 17 times for Sunderland in 2015.
The former England under-21 international scored 19 goals across 120 Premier League appearances for the Black Cats and Crystal Palace.
However, he is now a free agent aged 30 after leaving Cardiff in the summer.