Taking to Instagram David revealed the hilarious comment that the renowned professor made when he met with him and his wife, Victoria Beckham.
Alongside a photo of Stephen’s famous speech synthesizer David revealed the cheeky message on the cosmologist’s screen which read: “I’m always being compared to you as a British icon. And sometimes you rate higher and sometimes I do.”
David seemed extremely humbled by Professor Hawking’s compliment and mused of their encounter: “It was an absolute honour to meet Professor Hawking. What he said to me was truly amazing.”
Stephen, 73, who has been paralysed and confined to a wheelchair for most of his adult life, and recently had his story portrayed on the big screen by British actor Eddie Redmayne, who won an Oscar for the role in The Theory of Everything, is known for his gregarious sense of humour.
When Stephen attended the BAFTA Awards earlier this year actress Felicity Jones, who played his first wife alongside Redmayne in the biopic, introduced him to the stage as “the only person more intelligent than Stephen Fry.” The witty physicist then responded: “and better looking.”
Meanwhile Victoria also took to her Instagram account to gush: “Thank you @Google for an inspiring evening, was an honour to meet Stephen Hawking x vb.”
The meeting of the two very different, but nonetheless iconic, British stars comes just days after David celebrated his 40th birthday in Morocco with wife Victoria and an assortment of famous friends, including a mini-Spice Girls reunion.
David’s 40th also marked his decision to finally join Instagram, where his account broke previous social media records, gaining over 1 million followers in the space of 24 hours.
Now already at 5.8 million followers less than a fortnight after launching his account, his post with Stephen Hawking garnered nearly half a million likes from his adoring fans!