Estranged son Brooklyn’s bombshell reckoning with Brand Beckham last night was made inevitable, I’m told, by an unhappy Christmas filled with briefings against him and his wife by his own family.
That’s the view of the Peltz-Beckham camp, who say that David and Victoria made a series of ‘idiotic miscalculations’ after privately going to war with their son’s wife, Nicola, after the couple wed three years ago.
‘They just didn’t stop. They just kept pushing and pushing it. Brooklyn didn’t want to do this, but in the end he thought screw it,’ says a source.
In worse news for Sir David and Lady Beckham, I’m told the problems go deeper even than those revealed last night, and that this may not be the end of it.
‘The biggest problem for the other side,’ says my source, ‘is that there is so much more that Brooklyn can say if he wants to…
‘The Beckhams kept on gambling that Brooklyn would never dare to speak. They just misplayed it because, one day, it was going to be time.’
That time was up last night when, over six Instagram posts, Brooklyn accused his parents of trying to ruin his marriage and telling ‘countless lies’ about him to preserve their image.
To them, he said, image was more important than authentic relationships. He had been controlled, manipulated and demeaned in public by his parents in a way that had left him suffering anxiety.
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Many will wonder whether having helped their son, Brooklyn, in the past excuses the Beckhams’ nasty behaviour towards his wife, Nicola, writes Alison Boshoff. The couple pictured earlier this month at a farmers’ market
The briefings referred to by the Peltz-Beckham camp must surely include the story that he had cruelly cut off his devastated grandparents, to whom he was once close.
A number of articles were published before Christmas bemoaning his estrangement from David’s parents, Ted and Sandra, and Victoria’s parents, Tony and Jackie.
In truth, as the Beckhams’ side admitted after Christmas, he is in touch with both sets of grandparents. Though the contact is limited to texts and occasional calls – since everyone in the family is naturally upset by the feud – it was not true to say that he had cut them off completely, as briefed.
I have a role in this story, since the feud was originally revealed by me in July 2022.
Back then, a number of sources who had been at the wedding in April, held at the Peltz family home in Palm Beach, said tensions had risen around the event and Nicola and Victoria were no longer liking each other’s posts on social media.
There was then a period of denial when the Beckhams insisted that things were fine.
Nicola and Brooklyn attended a number of Victoria Beckham fashion shows and other family events, like the launch of David’s Netflix documentary in October 2023 (though both looked miserable, it has to be said).
David and Victoria, and their other children, Romeo, Cruz and Harper, were likewise supportive of Nicola’s 2024 debut film, Lola – which she wrote, directed and starred in – and Brooklyn’s cookery shows and hot sauce business.
But the difficulties behind the scenes couldn’t be hidden. Come spring last year, when Brooklyn didn’t show up at his father’s 50th birthday parties, the schism became well and truly public.
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Over six Instagram posts, Brooklyn accused his parents of trying to ruin his marriage and telling ‘countless lies’ about him to preserve their image
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Nicola and Brooklyn attended a number of Victoria Beckham fashion shows and other family events, like the launch of David’s Netflix documentary in October 2023
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David Beckham at his 50th birthday party in the Cotswolds, with his parents, Ted and Sandra (far right)
David Beckham is seen for first time since Brooklyn’s bombshells
Brooklyn said last night that he had not wanted to come to the London party, which was full of cameras, but had wanted to meet privately with his dad.
Yet he says he was told that was only an option if he left his wife behind. If this is true, it was surely a blow to him – and a devastating indictment of his relationship with his father.
Family issues came into focus over the festive season, with posts by Victoria’s mother Jackie of a ‘Brooklyn’ stocking on the fireplace, and an additional post by David over the New Year of a picture of a young Brooklyn and the rest of the family, captioned ‘I love you all’.
Perhaps oddly, both were perceived as digs by Brooklyn, who blocked his parents on social media.
And the briefings continued.
When I revealed that Brooklyn had requested his parents only contact him via his lawyers last summer, one family source apparently described him as an ‘ungrateful sod’ and observed that his parents had tried to help him professionally when he was a young adult.
Many will wonder whether having helped their son in the past excuses the Beckhams’ nasty behaviour towards Nicola, for whom Victoria has an unprintable nickname. Their nickname for Brooklyn meanwhile is ‘the hostage’.
And what about the video posted on December 26, of David, 50, and Victoria, 51, dancing to Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb’s Guilty, while singing ‘We’ve got nothing to be guilty of’ – right after Brooklyn blocked them?
That sent a message which was far from subtle.
As a friend of Brooklyn and Nicola says: ‘I believe that David and Victoria care about him, but this is not the way you try to win someone back.’
Brooklyn had been hoping for an apology. None came. Indeed, Brooklyn said yesterday that he doesn’t want to reconnect with his parents – a stunning blow.
However, it can be revealed that what finally tipped Brooklyn over the edge was a recent article which said not only that he wanted to reconcile with them, but had made ‘tone deaf’ overtures and sacked his crisis PR.
The Peltz-Beckhams say that none of that is true. Matthew Hiltzik, a high-profile crisis communications specialist in New York, remains engaged by the young couple.
This is what Brooklyn was referring to when he wrote: ‘Recently, I have seen with my own eyes the lengths that they’ll go through to place countless lies in the media, mostly at the expense of innocent people, to preserve their own facade.’
Today, those close friends of David and Victoria who have previously briefed about the rift are now saying absolutely nothing. That seems wise.
It can be revealed that even before Brooklyn’s surprise six pages of revelations on Instagram, his mother, the former Spice Girl turned fashion designer, had tweaked her social media settings so that only people she approves of can link with her.
The upshot is that she cannot be tagged on stories about her estranged son.
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Victoria’s mother and father, Tony and Jackie, joined the family for a group snap at David’s 50th. The only people missing from the photo are Brooklyn and Nicola
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On December 26, David and Victoria posted a video of them dancing to Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb’s Guilty, while singing ‘We’ve got nothing to be guilty of’ – right after Brooklyn blocked them
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Brooklyn and Nicola with her father, American billionaire Nelson Peltz
How Nicola Peltz tried to morph into a Victoria Beckham ‘Wannabe’
‘She was on a war footing,’ says a Beckham source, who adds: ‘The Beckhams have a much bigger and better image than the Peltz family and this has not been a fair war.
‘The Beckhams have been famous for so long and they know how to turn the narrative. This though is a major bomb – I’m sure Victoria will have been screaming.’
That friend hears that Victoria invited some of Brooklyn’s ex-girlfriends to her fashion shows and even offered to dress them. If true, it’s peculiar behaviour, and only guaranteed to make her son feel even more uncomfortable.
This week, invitations went out to his brother Cruz’s 21st birthday, which will be a big event. It can be revealed that there was no invitation for Brooklyn.
It seems that the family has given up on him by this point.
A Peltz-Beckham source says that, after the rift became so public last spring, he and Nicola were desperate to get the truth about their wedding out there.
The PR advice to the couple was to make no noise and not react to briefings. And when stories were written about their absence from celebrations for David’s knighthood and Victoria’s Netflix documentary, they did indeed maintain their silence.
But in the end, it seems, a reaction was inevitable.
As a friend puts it: ‘He and Nicola got extremely fed up of being goaded.’
As Brooklyn wrote: ‘I have been silent for years and made every effort to keep these matters private.
‘Unfortunately, my parents and their team have continued to go to the Press, leaving me with no choice but to speak for myself and tell the truth about only some of the lies that have been printed. I do not want to reconcile with my family.
‘I’m not being controlled, I’m standing up for myself for the first time in my life.’
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