Inside the wedding war that broke brand Beckham

0:04The Telegraph.

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1:44It's the most notable celebrity family feud of the past decade. But is there any chance of reconciliation for Brooklyn and the Beckham family? Entertainment journalist and author of Brand Beckham, Alison Boshoff, joins me to dive inside the war plaguing Britain's first family and the greatest misstep the Beckhams ever made.

2:14What a book we have to discuss. I love the title of this, Alison Boshoff. Brand Beckham, the fame, the feuds, the fallout. This is juicy, juicy stuff, isn't it? It is juicy. That's why they put the fallout in gold. Just in case you'd missed, that's the bit you really want to get into. But I tell you what is most astonishing about this story, and you and I have been in journalism for many years. I cannot believe that the family that absolutely closely guarded their own privacy to an extent. I appreciate they gave a lot over to the press, but they tried to control the narrative for years and years and years.

2:57People like you would try and fish around, find out what was going on. Was the marriage all right? Are the kids all right? But it was all very closely guarded. You couldn't get away with reporting much. You might be threatened with being sued or with consequences from their media management people. And the person that blows the lid on Brand Beckham is actually their oldest child, Brooklyn. So Brooklyn hands on a plate to the media an expose of this family that, I mean, no journalist could have dreamt of. No, I mean, it went so much further. I mean, what a lifting of the lid. I mean, a lifting of so many lids, a whole kitchen's worth of lids.

3:40I mean, we understood and expected that he was going to say that he felt his family were briefing against his wife because that was what provoked him to make the statement. I didn't understand that he was going to say, I don't want to reconcile with them because that's the first and heaviest blow. But it then went on through an absolute laundry list of grievances, leading right up to trivial nonsense like, oh, and my mother didn't support my wife's efforts for rehoming dogs during Covid in the shelter. I mean, what? It was like a list of grievances. I mean, you call it in the book the grenade.

4:15So let's just start with that and just remind people. So we've got rumours bubbling up, some uncomfortable headlines. all is not well in Beckham world right we think that there are tensions there's a funny little scene on a red carpet I think at some kind of showbiz event where Peltz I've forgotten her first name was Miss Hiller thank you there's some kind of strange tension at a showbiz event where Nicola Peltz and this is pre-wedding is kind of posing awkwardly with Victoria Beckham She doesn't look as if she wants to be there. Victoria's there engineering the whole pose, which is kind of one leg forward so that you look thinner than you are, not that she needs to.

4:58And it all looks a bit tense. Then we have the wedding. And again, rumours are bubbling up, has all gone to plan. There's a problem with the dress. But then we think, oh, well, weddings involve a degree of family drama. And then the Instagram bombshell drops. Just remind us of exactly what he said about his parents. So his essential accusation against his parents is that they have mistreated his wife, the woman he chose to be his life partner, and that they don't like her and they've done everything they could. He goes further to split them up. So we knew that there were problems. In the lead up to the wedding, things had seemed OK.

5:39You know, it was going it was all the engagement unfolded during Covid. So the wedding was delayed and it was going to be there going to be two weddings. Was it going to be one? Was it going to be in the UK? OK, but, you know, this was all just standard, you know, to and fro planning and a big event. And it should be pointed out that Pelts is from a Palm Beach dynasty. Yes. Papa Pelts has got a shed load of money, probably more money than the Beckhams, actually. Massively more than the Beckhams. So you've got a bit of a conflict here, like who's in control of these nuptials? Well, clearly it would be the parents of the bride, right?

6:09Of course. Because that's tradition. Yeah. But then you've got the Beckhams trying to muscle in on it somewhat, try and make some of it their own, because they've also got a brand to promote. Just to give the context of that, because I understand that Papa Peltz is quite a scary figure. He's pretty formidable, right? They call him the smiling crocodile. I mean, he's a billionaire. He got his money in the Michael Milken junk bond trading era. He's been married only twice, which is pretty good going because he's 83. Yes. His current wife, Claudia, a titanium socialite from Palm Beach, was taken to a conference for vending machines on her honeymoon by Papa Peltz.

6:51This is not a sentimental man. At the time, he was running a massive firm that was making its millions in the packaging industry. He's now made billions and he's an investor on the board of Heinz, Mondelez, Unilever. He tried to get a sort of hostile board seat on Disney recently. I mean, he's the real deal. Nelson Peltz. It's good for context, that, because the idea of Nelson Peltz and then David and Victoria Beckham sort of around a table of in-laws, there's a culture clash there. I mean, I'm only getting kind of, this is reminding me so much of Harry and Meghan and kind of Americans meeting Brits.

7:30And I know the Beckhams are different kind of Brits to the royal family, but you can just see the tensions playing out. Yeah, the scene is set for all those cultural misunderstandings. understandings and it's things like you know at a british wedding we would expect there's a top table and it's you know bridegroom and bridegroom's parents right but in american weddings that's not actually how it works on the top table it's all the bridesmaids and so on so the beckhams were not on the top table at the wedding and it was a day when all the slights were picked over and this was one of many but so in the run-up to the wedding there had been a falling out with brooklyn over a slightly dull and abstruse agreement over the rights to the Beckham name because David had sold 55 % of DB Holdings Ventures, beg your pardon, to another company, Authentic Brands Group, and that meant that they had some rights over the Beckham name.

8:21So they needed to unentangle some of the protective copyright filings as they pertain to their adult children. And that would be problematic if they did, as they did go on to do, double barrel themselves up. She's a Beckham Peltz or a Peltz Beckham. Yes. If you're going to do that, I suppose, contractually, legally and otherwise, you've got to have some stipulations in place to kind of ring fence the Beckham name. You do get that. Who owns the name? We all understand that. So the way it was explained to me, and I'm not a lawyer, is that this is what's called a live and let live agreement, what was proposed and that it would allow Brooklyn to have his brand and David to have his brand and everyone could just carry on.

9:00but that was not the advice given by the pelt lawyers who said that it wasn't in brooklyn's interest to sign this thing and so from february 2022 uh when he refused to sign it till april 2022 when he got married they weren't on speaking terms so therefore everything that went down at the wedding which was quite a sort of a normal wedding where there's you know disasters and last minutes and things happen and people will get a bit you know fall out in some minor way but that all fell with the force of a bomb because they were already not on good terms and they were already miscommunicating. And then I first heard from a friend that there was some problem post-wedding in July that year and it was denied in a very sort of wishy-washy way by the Beckhams people and I thought, well, this is fine.

9:50I'll do a small story to say there'd been some tensions and there was this really weird baffling thing of Instagram likes being withheld from before the wedding, as I found out, until sort of afterwards, you know, with things like your new mother-in-law doesn't like your own wedding picture. You think, oh, hang on, that is odd. But I expected a week afterwards, David and Victoria are going to start liking Nicola's posts and vice versa, because surely they must, and they didn't. I love how these celebrities do gift journalists the sort of digital footprint of their comings and goings. We can now read, I mean, back in the old days before social media, you and I, If it's me finding Royal Stories, you finding Showbiz one, you'd have to speak to everyone you could, try and get some evidence.

10:33These people are invading their own privacy. I know. And they're leaving it there for you. I mean, I so I'm I'm old. Not that old, Alison. But I'm, you know, at the time, 2022. You're old school, I would say. Old school. I didn't really understand about Instagram likes. So I got some young colleague in the office. I said, listen, I've got this story. And I just wondered, is there a way to check if David and Victoria have been liking Niffa Peltz's stories and Brooklyns? And she said, yes, yes. What you do is you type this into this box. I said, OK. And then 10 minutes later, I went back to her and I said, I'm doing this wrong because they're not liking anything.

11:09And she said, oh, my God. And you needed Gen Z to explain the gravitas of that. So, my goodness me, there's a complete breakdown. Then probably before we discuss the Instagram bombshell, we just need to go through what actually happened at this wedding. So we've already got arguments about top tables. Now, this whole farrago involving Mark Antony, a sort of Latino singer, just talk us through it because it was later confirmed by a British DJ who went on this morning and said that this account of Victoria apparently upstaging the bride was sort of true. Yes. And the Beckhams will to this day deny that they intended any offence.

11:56I mean, the problem going into it, of course, is, of course, there's going to be miscommunication because these are people who aren't actually speaking. Yeah. Which nobody understood until I found out from my book. And I was like, oh, well, now this all makes perfect sense because I didn't understand how this could possibly happen. So it wasn't the first dance. OK, the first dance was to something else some hours prior. But as the wedding goes on and they've had their dinner and they've had their speeches and then there's a new phase of the wedding and Nicola slips off and she gets out of her wedding dress into a new party dress.

12:28And she comes down and they're ready for Mark Antony to sing. Mark Antony is friends with David Beckham. It's their gift to Nicola and Brooklyn is that he's going to perform. And they've known Mark Antony for ages. Victoria and Mark Antony are really close friends. Yes. Well, David and Mark Antony particularly. It's a Miami connection. Right. Fine. Okay. So, and this was one of their wedding gifts, the couple. So Nicola comes down, she's in a new dress, and there's a revolving stage, which has been paid for by Daddy Pelts. And it cost$200 ,000. And then Daddy Pelts was also on the chain for all the travel, transport, and logistics for Mark Antony's set.

13:08And that cost him another 50k. So what was said to me was, why do you think Nelson Peltz would pay a quarter of a million dollars for someone else to have the first dance with his new son-in-law? I mean, there is no logic in the world in which that would happen. It was planned to be a moment for Brooklyn and Nicola as newlyweds. So the stage revolves around. Everyone goes, whoo, there's Mark Antony. And he gives a long speech. You know, I've known David and Victoria for ages in Brooklyn and what tremendous people they all are. And now please welcome to the stage the most beautiful woman in the room, Victoria Beckham.

13:44I mean, in a way, OK, if the Beckhams conspired in that, fine. But what is Mark Antony thinking? What are you thinking? I mean, honestly. Honestly. There's a bride there in a new dress. I know. It's insane. On your wedding day, you are the most beautiful woman in the room. And there's no argument here, Camilla. We don't argue with that. So then what? So we think then I shouldn't laugh. I know there's family feud at the heart of this and it's actually very tragic. We'll get onto the serious nature of it in a minute. But there is something vaguely amusing about the idea then of Victoria Beckham as her own daughter-in-law is seething in the corner.

14:24She's running the room in tears. Sashaying up to Mark Antony. And then, according to Brooklyn, sort of inappropriately dancing on him, I think was the wording. I think this is our cultural differences with America again, because with and on are interchangeable. He's not actually suggesting she mounted him like a mating frog. That's not, that's not. And the inappropriateness, and everyone went wild. Imagine there was some kind of sexual component to this. Or slut-dropping or something. The inappropriateness was it was inappropriate for the dance to be with her because it was meant to be with his wife.

14:59So God bless Brooklyn. I think he's written it and then not quite understood how it was going to be interpreted. Has he written it? Well, or has he? Yes, that's another bit in the book where somebody in their camp did admit to me that is not all his own homework. It didn't sound like it was all his own. And also, as you say, it seemed to be infused with Americanisms. Again, parallels to Harry and Meghan, where sometimes the prince hasn't quite seemed to be articulating precisely as he would some of the statements he has uttered. Can't you see the strings? I don't know. No, we don't say that. But listen, behind every great man is a great woman.

15:36And behind that woman is often his mistress. But point is, OK, so. But why shouldn't a wife actually have a say? You know, that's the other thing. I think there was a lot of genuinely unpleasant sexism and undeserved hatred towards Nicola and Brooklyn. And ditto, actually, Harry and Meghan and that kind of whole hate industry. Yes. Why can't a woman have a say? Why can't you stick up for your marriage? Yes. Why can't you stick up for yourself? And also, why can't a husband stick up for their new bride? A hundred percent. But, OK, so he goes on Instagram. Why do you think he chose that medium, that time?

16:13what was the run up what was the kind of straw that broke the camel's back that made this guy suddenly decide right I'm unleashing I'm unleashing on my own family who let's be honest have given him everything I appreciate he didn't have a choice as to the family he was born into I also appreciate we can have a debate about whether you should commercialise publicise your children many people have not done it many celebrities insist that the media epixelate their children's faces until the age of 18. Some people, I remember a story once, Rowan Atkinson didn't even admit for years and years how many kids he had, what they were called.

16:52I'm here to promote my work and that's it. So there is an argument for that. Having said that, Brooklyn Beckham would not have brought out his photography book or been a chef, where I think he made a toasted sandwich. I can't remember what quite happened on some US morning TV show if he wasn't called Beckham and if his parents hadn't helped to promote him, right? Because I don't know. I mean, people say he's not the sharpest tool in the box. I don't know. I haven't seen his sort of essays and I'm not familiar with his GCSE or A-level grades, whatever. But from a parental point of view, they must have been standing there going, I have given you everything and you have just publicly trashed us.

17:32Yeah, I think he felt provoked over a really long period of time. And I'll tell you what the last straw was. But so this really started to build in the spring prior when it was David's 50th birthday party. And one of their other children was dating someone who Brooklyn believed he'd dated. Now, the lady in question says we never dated. Brooklyn thought it was a date. It thought it was a dating situation. Perhaps it was just a hookup anyway. But the situation transpired that Brooklyn and Nicola, who had been making nice with the cameras for a couple of years, but it had been really hard going. And they felt sure that the Beckhams didn't like Nicola.

18:12And against this background, Brooklyn and Nicola said, we want to come to this birthday party. We won't step through the door if this woman is there, who's my brother's girlfriend. Now, at that point, you can make an argument that actually the Beckhams could really have just said, OK, this is a tough one and we can't change your mind. But we really want all of our children there. That's more important than our other son's girlfriend. Very sisterly towards this other girlfriend, regardless of the history with Brooklyn. Anyway, but so that sort of that started a ripple. And then all summer there were briefings, apparently from Camp Beckham.

18:48Brooklyn's an ungrateful sod. this girl Nicola's controlling him you know we call him the hostage she's a viper on it goes again parallels with the Sussexes yes because Harry was nicknamed the hostage yeah and on and on it goes and then Christmas comes and it's like oh Brooklyn's granny is so sad she's not seeing him at Christmas who's that whose mum is that well both the grannies actually okay fine and then grannies in revolt grannies in revolt and then you know and then it's all happy Christmas you know including tagging Brooklyn he by this point has said through lawyers please stop tagging me on Instagram and they've just carried on carried on new year happy new year I love you all including at Brooklyn Beckham from David Beckham he felt like it was never going to win and then there was a nasty story that came out that said that uh he had sacked Brooklyn had sacked his publicist which wasn't true and Brooklyn just thought you know f this I have had enough they're just sniping at me.

19:48It never stops. Nothing I do makes them stop. And he just got angry. And that was the result. Was it definitely Camp Beckham briefing rather than people taking it upon themselves who might be close to the camp, but not the actual camp? Well, we think it was Camp Beckham. I think it was Camp Beckham. Because if you were Brooklyn then, you would be thinking... Yes. And he did say in the statement, people sent on my parents' orders to brief against my wife. On my parents' orders. That's what he claims. The Beckhams might have a different story. They may well have a different story. But, you know, if your son believes that about you, then your relationship has reached absolute rock bottom.

20:25Parallels again. Harry saying that the palace powers that be, which are under his father and his brother's control, were briefing against him. So I suppose if you're a member of the family and you're thinking, my goodness me, you're allegedly instructing PR people to sully my good name and blood is meant to be thicker than water, then you would be pretty peeved to say the very least, Alison. And of course he's going to unleash on Instagram because it's his milieu. So he's not really a chef and people get this wrong about him. He's not pretending to be Marco Pierre White. He is, you know, an Insta-chef.

20:58So you do sort of eye-catching, you know, gimmicky dishes. You know, that's his stock in trade. That's the waters in which he swims. But is he a photographer or an Insta-chef? No, he's an Insta-chef now. He's given up on the photography. Well, the photography book was lampoon for a particularly unfortunate photograph of an elephant that frankly could have been taken by a five-year-old and looked better. But no matter. Again, I'm just saying, I mean, ordinary people don't come out with photography books. He came out with one because he could, because his surname is Beckham.

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22:47I'm Jake Stouck, co-founder and CEO of Serval. We built Serval to automate the IT work that slows companies down. Onboarding, password resets, access to applications, my laptop stopped working. while employees wait for help, their real work is put on hold. IT desperately wants to automate this work and that's why they need Serval. You just tell Serval what you want to automate in plain English and it's built. No drag and drop workflows, no expensive consultants. Employees get unblocked and IT teams go from drowning in tickets to building what actually matters. With Serval, IT becomes the AI engine powering the entire company.

23:26This is a new way to run IT. We guarantee you'll automate 50 % of all tickets and we'll prove it to you in a free four-week pilot. Go to serval.com slash tickets. That's S-E-R-V-A-L dot com slash tickets.

23:55yeah i think what the beckhams have failed to distinguish between is their ability to attract attention and the and the desirability of attracting respect and i think they don't understand that while they can get attention for their children's ventures which are all in you you know, in spheres which mirror their own capabilities. Yeah. Until Brooklyn started with cooking. You don't get respect that way. And you have something called, you know, celebrity by association. And people immediately hate you if you have, if you're famous because of who you married, Megan, if you're famous because of who your parents are, Brooklyn.

24:33People, there's an immediate really noisy judgment out there. I'm not talking about you and I, Camilla. I'm talking about people. The public. You know, about the whole social media world. Well, unless she managed to transcend, I mean, let's look at Stella McCartney. Okay, Stella McCartney manages to transcend the criticism of nepotism by going in a completely different direction to her father, a former Beatle, obviously, and creating this hugely successful fashion brand that is renowned around the world. Okay, then you take her on her own merits and you say, very well done Stella McCartney good for you.

25:11Maybe she was propelled by some initial cash from her multi-millionaire stroke billionaire father whatever. I think we can all agree that Stella McCartney has been extremely successful in her field. Similarly if similarly we could say of Victoria Beckham okay not necessarily the most talented of all the Spice Girls let's give that sobriquet to Mel C arguably. Okay great singer. Still successful now doing DJing and all the rest of it, but hugely influential as a fashion icon. Comes out with a fashion brand which hasn't commercially been very successful, but I think people have said, well, the lines of the clothing that she designs are actually lovely.

25:52Any woman who has used her eyeliner says it's bloody good, even if it's very expensive. So in that regard, she has tried to transcend her pop star past and it's admirable. Similarly, we can't take away from David Beckham. The fact that he was a great footballer. Yes, and the fact that he has a magical ability to sell stuff. I mean, no one has done it like him. Whiskey. But are we not expecting too much of these kids, Camilla? You know, you're a mum. You can't, it's like, someone described to me Victoria's Spice Girls success as like winning the lottery the first time you buy a ticket. Yeah. And she took about 10 years to get over the fact that she couldn't then repeat it as a solo artist.

26:30Yeah. And she had to do something different because she thought that was the only thing she was going to be able to do. And she didn't understand that, you know, you've been struck by lightning and it's not going to happen again. Yeah. But aren't we? Well, she might have been struck by lightning twice in marrying him. Yeah, maybe. But aren't we unfair to expect these children to be Estella McCartney? Yes. I mean, very few celebrity children are going to be Estella McCartney. And I think it's unfair to mock them for a perceived lack of talent or even a perceived lack of hard work. Well, I don't want to be unfair to them, but I think then they have to take the choice.

27:05It's like the Osborne that didn't want to be in the docuseries. Wasn't it Amy who said, I don't want anything to do with this. I just want to do my own thing. And actually, Jack and Kelly were in the docuseries and they went on to have quite successful, high profile careers. Amy hasn't gone in that direction. I think you've got to make a choice. And maybe this is Brooklyn's point, right? He thinks he didn't have a choice. We've now got the other children, Romeo, Cruz and Harper, all seemingly quite happy with the limelight. We even hear that the youngest child, Harper, is about to bring out her own makeup range.

27:41I know, crazy. But she may have made the calculation, having observed her parents' huge success. Do you know what? I can make some money here. It beats, you know, doing a degree and not getting a job on the open job market. I can do this. I've got the name. this is what I'm going to do. But you therefore, if you're going to go down that route, you can't really complain. You either embrace the whole thing and go, yeah, I'm a Nepo baby, but look what success I'm going to make of it. And particularly with social media now, there's so much freedom. This is where it's interesting with the Beckhams, you know, to what extent are they actually doing anything beyond carefully curating this lifestyle that they want us all to buy into where they're drinking red wine in a wonderful Cotswolds family home, dancing under the stars, enjoying family life.

28:35You know, it's all, it's like Harry and Meghan. What is presented to us, anybody who's been any family knows isn't the reality, right? You're a mum, I'm a mum. The reality of family life is not as neat and tidy as the Instagram image suggests. No, it doesn't feel authentic, does it? And, you know, Brooklyn loved it. out. Brooklyn wanted out of it and he felt it was inauthentic and performative. And he wanted that doesn't mean to say he doesn't want to have a media career. It doesn't mean to say he doesn't want to be a Beckham, but he just found it impossible to exist in this milieu where his parents get absolutely down to brass tacks.

29:13His parents disliked the woman who he was delighted to call his wife and is delighted to call his wife. And the more The more that they were a little bit snippy and snidey along this, you know, for years and years and Nicola felt nothing she could do was ever enough. And the more that they they picked at that quietly and then picked at that more publicly via these briefings saying what a terrible person she was. The more he thinks, you know, if you offer someone the choice, is it your parents or is it the person you've chosen as your life partner? It's always the person you've chosen as your life partner.

29:48always and I think the Beckhams failure to understand that really is the kind of key misstep in the whole story. But also isn't he trying to expose the degree of hypocrisy which perhaps has been at play here from the very beginning? Now I've got a kind of personal collection to their initial story because they obviously sold their wedding to OK! magazine which at the time was edited by Martin Townsend, who unfortunately passed away last year, but to whom I remained very close because he was my editor at the Sunday Express. And then we went on to be lifelong chums. I mean, some of the stories he says about dealing with them in the early days are just extraordinary.

30:33Couldn't believe how much money they were offered, Camilla. That's the thing. You know, they were at the forefront of that bubble, that bubble of the celebrity wedding, which has now well and truly popped a long time ago. But at that point, you know, you remember that three issues of OK, Martin said there were scuffles in WH Smith's over the last copies. They sold, they printed more than they thought they could possibly sell. They sold them all. They even made a little book I should have brought along today, Invitation to a Wedding, a hardback book. That sold out. I found one on eBay. They realised they literally had a licence to print money.

31:07Yes, 100%. And they loved being famous. So with those two things, that was the foundation of Bran Beckham was we have an unquenchable desire for status, attention and money. But then is the hypocrisy this kind of juxtaposition of pretending they're just like the rest of us? I mean, we get that actually, and it was pointed out in the documentary, wasn't it, where he says to Victoria, be honest, because obviously Victoria's parents were much better off than his parents. he's much more working class she comes from a nice part of Hertfordshire that I'm familiar with her father's driving around in a roller you know they're middle class thoroughly middle class the Victoria side of the family David less so he's there in the back garden with Ted his father doing keepy uppies until midnight there's no doubting his commitment to his sport and of course he is hugely and prodigiously successful and no one could ever take that away from him but I suppose it's this kind of juxtaposition the whole time well who are you really?

32:14It was the same with the Rebecca Luz allegations oh you're the world's happiest married couple and yet here's this woman making allegations about infidelity then you decide to tell the world that you are actually happily married by commissioning Jason Fraser an old paparazzi that you and I are both very familiar with to take photographs of you in each other's loving arms on an alpine skiing holiday what's the truth here the created images on instagram now of happy families well it's not happy family because one of your children is completely disenfranchised from you yeah i think you could certainly say that the image is feels inauthentic in in some ways um although you know this is actually genuinely um a genuine marriage a genuine set of family relationships these are people who genuinely and sincerely love their children yes and i don't think it's fair to say that any of that is is there's no hypocrisy attached to any of that no i don't doubt that it's a very painful thing for them but i mean what do you want them to do they're not going to post some crying video thank goodness because i can't bear those ones so you know they're going to just sail ahead with a bit of dignity and hope that they can in time save it they think they can't save it until uh brooklyn and nicholas split up i would say you're going to be waiting a really really long time because these two young people are exceedingly committed to each other.

33:39And, you know, somebody actually needs to be the bigger person and say sorry first. But not before I've done the paperback. I don't doubt for a moment, by the way, that David and Victoria Beckham love their children. And I think actually with everything that they've had to contend with, I mean, their fame is on a different level, really. okay cultivated by themselves but you go further down that track and you literally can't really appear anywhere without somebody mobbing you my understanding is all of these children are very well brought up in fact I remember encountering them at a Taylor Swift concert back in the day and they were kind of ushered into a VIP area everyone who's encountered them says they're unfailingly polite um yes as is David yeah and you know good to people good to staff Martin always used to say about Victoria that she is literally hilarious and, funny enough, doesn't take herself that seriously and is self-deprecating and has a very dry sense of humour and all the rest of it.

34:41So I suppose it's just the control that is being exercised the whole time that kind of makes you suspicious. You know, even the docu-series isn't entirely honest. No, well, of course it's not. I mean, the docuseries is a polishing of their halo by people who are on their payroll. I mean, it was made by their own production company. But that's the way of all of these big Netflix documentaries about, you know, Ronaldo or, you know, Mourinho or whatever. These are all kind of hagiographies done by, you know, the only way you get access to someone that famous is if you offer up all the control to them.

35:19So it's only going to be the authorised version. That begs the question, you know, how insecure are these people? They would actually be a bit more relatable if they did a slightly more kind of warts and all. Yeah. And I mean, you said that thing about Martin saying Victoria is genuinely hilarious. And I was going to say, well, like all very deeply insecure people, what she does is she makes the joke first. Yeah. Before you put her down, she'll put herself down first. That's actually, that I think is actually almost a bit heartbreaking. You know, she had a really tough time in the Spice Girls.

35:53She? Yeah. She had a really hard time in that group. What happened there? Well, classic girl band dynamics, you know, don't give her a vocal. She, you know, make her stand at the back. She can't dance or sing. You know, the Herberts who put the band together gave her five out of ten, I think, for both, dancing and singing. And I think it was a six or a seven on looks. It's harsh. It's really harsh. She looked so sophisticated in that band. She was great. And they all had their role to play. You can't take that away from her. They were great. Her in a little black dress, come on, with her bob going on.

36:25Is that why she never wanted to do the reunion then? Yes. Because she's still... So who's she closest to? Because doesn't she sometimes hang out with Gerry? I would say she is closest to Emma Bunton and Mel C. Those three of them get along. Gerry and Mel B are quite combustible personalities. That's right. And they both at times drift off from little untethered helium balloons from the pack. Wasn't it Jerry and Scary trying to compete to run the show while the other three were kind of, oh my goodness, you know, these two really formidable women? Yes, yeah, yeah. Okay, so she felt bullied. Then you have the whole you're not thin enough, which at the time was disgraceful really.

37:10Yeah, and she caught it from Jerry, of course. Jerry said to her, this is how you count calories. She introduced her to Slim Fast Shakes. It's all in Victoria's own book, Learning to Fly. She talks about the genesis of the eating disorder, which she then went on very bravely to admit to in her own documentary. Yeah. So when that was born of, you know, feelings of not being good enough. Actually, yeah. It's very sad. That's something, isn't it? To actually, because many, many women in the public eye would never admit to it at all and pretend that to become that thin. It's all, you know, a question of very healthy dieting.

37:43Yes, the word healthy is overused rather. Any other woman knows that that's wrong. So that's an extremely admirable thing to have done. Yeah, and hats off to her. Very brave. And, you know, it will have helped people who are suffering with, you know, the lifelong hell of eating disorders. And I absolutely doffed my cap to her. I think that was very brave of her. In total, then, having written this book, because we did do a previous Daily Tea on this. And I sort of said, look, I think in the round, actually, Brooklyn's a bit of a Nepo brat. and you know you made your choices at the time you cashed in on the name when it suited you now it suddenly doesn't also again in the vein of Harry and Meghan I'm not sure it's particularly helpful much as you and I love feasting on it for you to be literally trashing your family in public I don't know whether that's the right thing to do in any family I mean famous or otherwise what ordinary people would go and do a rant about their parents on Facebook.

38:49This guy decides to do it to millions of people on Instagram. Has that helped matters? Has anything been resolved? I mean, are Brooklyn and Nicola any closer to being reconciled with the Beckhams? No. And I'm told, you know, on the contrary, Nicola is over it now. She has no interest. Well, that's OK for her to say. But he would like to. It's his siblings. Yeah, he would like to. It's a very sorry state of affairs. It is a very sorry state of affairs, yeah. And how do we think Romeo, Cruz and Harper feel about all this? Because the thing about that quartet is, I mean, they're all in the same boat.

39:25They seem to be very, very close. Well, we know how the brothers feel about it. And it's not pretty because they've posted things and then deleted them. But they've been screenshot. Like, remind me. Well, I can't use any of the language inside these four walls. but, you know, saying that he's a victim of Stockholm Syndrome and, you know, describing the Pelts as a bunch of something unrepeatables. Wow. So, yeah. So there's a lot of hostility from his brothers, which is awful. And I think, you know, Harper is the exception and, you know, Mrs. M would love her brother. But then I feel like she seems to have been in some way used to get a pointed message across, which just makes the whole thing worse, has made the whole thing worse.

40:07And so that's, OK, so that's that side of the kind of culpability of it all. The Beckhams themselves, did they bring this on themselves because they overdid it? They should have shielded these children more. They made an error in expressing any kind of opinion ever on anybody who their children brought home because I have two adult children and, you know, your input is not required. All that you're allowed to say is how delightful this person is the son or daughter I never had, and then you just zip your lip. And then they come to you when the marriage disintegrates and say, why didn't you tell me?

40:46If only the Beckhams had taken advice of Aunty Bosh, all of this could have been avoided. Wow. Any reaction to the book from Camp Beckham? Ah, nothing I'm able to share. Well, what does that just give us? I mean, do they like the fact that for the first time the truth is revealed? I may be off the Christmas card list, Camilla. You see, it's an occupational hazard. I know. Well, you and I both know you don't do the job to be popular. No, indeed not. It's a thankless task. But it has provided for a very enjoyable book, Bran Beckham, The Fame, The Feuds, The Fallout, from the woman in the know, Alison Boshoff.

41:23Thank you for joining me on The Daily Tea. Such a pleasure.

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