Don’t pretend you haven’t heard the story of the week. And it’s not Donald Trump pondering an invasion of Greenland, or what’s happening at the World Economic Forum in Davos, or the torrential rain over our sodden green land.
It’s Brooklyn Beckham’s very public, very viral Instagram rant against his parents, David Beckham (lately anointed Sir David) and Victoria Beckham (lately a Lady – although, if Brooklyn is to be believed, she behaved in a most unladylike way at his wedding, four years ago).
The first thing Brooklyn saw when he arrived into the world, at Portland Hospital in London, was likely a camera lens. His parents, already famous, were utterly determined to be even more so. They sold these prearranged pictures of minutes-old Brooklyn to celebrity magazines, and continued to shill landmark moments from his privileged life.
[ Brooklyn Peltz Beckham says he does not want to reconcile with his familyOpens in new window ]
Shill is an ugly word, but how else to describe the process of constantly choosing to sell images of your children for reasons of profit and publicity? There is no consent to be had from a baby, a toddler, a minor. And once you start to feed the public beast something it likes very much, then you have to keep your larder well stocked.
In the 26 years since Brooklyn arrived, followed by three more siblings, David and Victoria Beckham’s lives have transmogrified into the financial phenomena of Brand Beckham.
Their combined football and fashion careers; the arrival of the internet, social media and a new kind of celebrity; a willingness to allow their children to be publicly tracked as they grew up; and Netflix documentaries about both parents (who also produced the programmes) all helped create this monstrous $673 million brand.
Jobless Brooklyn, son of millionaires, married Nicola Peltz, daughter of a billionaire (Nelson Peltz, worth $1.6 billion), in April 2022. He now lives in the United States. Since the wedding – covered by Vogue – there have been loud rumblings of what the tabloids referred to as a feud between the Beckhams and the Peltz-Beckhams.
The bride, who had many frocks for her trio of big days, including custom Valentino for the ceremony itself, did not wear one made by her mother-in-law. The narrative around this was confusing, but it apparently fuelled this “feud”.
In the fallout, Brooklyn did not, for instance, publicly show up for David’s recent 50th-birthday extravaganza. Was he being controlled by his wife, gleeful tabloids asked. Over Christmas the story was about who had blocked whom on Instagram. On we went. Speculation kept speculating.
Then, this week, Brooklyn hurled what amounted to a written grenade of some 800 words on to Instagram, where he has 17 million followers. What is usually the stuff of very private conversations between families landed in the media like burning lava from a volcano erupting on to everything in its range.
At Brand Beckham, family harmony is as intertwined in the brand as the fashion empire Victoria presides over or the lucrative deals David has with Adidas and several other global companies. This harmonious illusion blew up on Monday with Brooklyn’s counternarrative. Its most explosive statements were:
“I do not want to reconcile with my family…”
“My mum cancelled making Nicola’s dress in the 11th hour despite how excited she was to wear her design, forcing her to urgently find a new dress…”
“My mum hijacked my first dance with my wife, which had been planned weeks in advance to a romantic love song…”
“My family values public promotion and endorsements above all else. Brand Beckham comes first. The narrative that my wife controls me is completely backwards. I have been controlled by my parents for most of my life.”
“I grew up with overwhelming anxiety. For the first time in my life, since stepping away from my family, that anxiety has disappeared.”
The following day I was out and about in Dublin on a day off, and happened to visit many shops over several hours. In each one the talk among both staff and customers seemed to be of nothing other than the Brooklyn Beckham story, all of them either scrolling in fascination on their phones for updates, and filling in the whole shop on what they were, or eagerly offering opinions and updates as I paid at the till.
Even when Taylor Swift was performing in Dublin, her presence didn’t permeate day-to-day life in quite the way this Beckham story was landing.
The Beckham family drama was carried not just by tabloids, but by media organistations across the world. Photograph: Mark Case/Getty Images
I too devoured for a time everything my phone could give me, which was seemingly never-ending. The story was everywhere. In Australia. Europe. The US. It wasn’t just predictably all over social media and the tabloids. The BBC carried it. So did the New York Times. Sky News. The Guardian. National Public Radio in the US. The Sydney Morning Herald. The Times of India.
Why are we so riveted this week by a story of what is, at base, a sad family rift? Because of the extraordinary wealth of both families? Because of the notion of Posh Spice “dancing inappropriately” – which, unsurprisingly, has been the subject of many, many memes? Because, at a very grim time for the world, it’s a gloriously frivolous distraction?
Or is it the latent voyeur in us all, just glad this isn’t happening to us, and transfixed by the fact it is happening at all?
Maybe it’s a mix of all of these reasons, but there is no doubt that one twentysomething’s online post unerringly hit a nerve of universal fascination this week.