Brooklyn Beckham’s Post Fuels Rift With Famous Parents (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: It's a real life family drama that's become a worldwide obsession. Brooklyn Beckham has been the talk of the internet after Brooklyn blasted his parents on social media.

[00:00:15] Speaker 2: I don't think there's been a showbiz story that's left people so shocked, so blindsided and so like...

[00:00:21] Speaker 3: One of the most famous families on earth, rocked by a social media post.

[00:00:26] Speaker 4: The fact that he did not turn up to his father's own 50th birthday, it was war. Brooklyn Beckham has gone nuclear, nuclear.

[00:00:37] Speaker 5: This is a complete example of an explosion at the wrong time of feelings that have been trapped in upset for years.

[00:00:43] Speaker 3: But who's pulling the strings?

[00:00:46] Speaker 6: That Instagram message was 100% managed.

[00:00:49] Speaker 3: And will Brand Beckham survive?

[00:01:00] Speaker 7: That is my simple way of making a chicken breast potato.

[00:01:05] Speaker 3: He's an aspiring chef who happens to be the son of one of the most famous celebrity couples on the planet. She's an actress and daughter of a billionaire businessman. For years, rumours swirled about a feud between the couple and Brooklyn's parents, Sir David and Lady Victoria Beckham. But Brooklyn and Nicola remained silent, until this. In a six-page Instagram post, Brooklyn lays bare his true feelings.

[00:01:42] Speaker 8: I have been silent for years and have 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.

[00:02:04] Speaker 3: And the internet explodes.

[00:02:08] Speaker 7: I have to stay up and see what the Beckhams respond.

[00:02:11] Speaker 1: Guys, it's panic stations in the Beckham household tonight. I just read Brooklyn Beckham's hit piece on his family. Brooklyn Beckham has gone nuclear.

[00:02:22] Speaker 4: I had just finished cooking dinner when I checked my phone and saw all the alerts come up. My phone was going off on one. Everybody has wanted to talk about it. I mean, if you look on social media, celebrities are talking about it. I was so shocked that Brooklyn did that post. He laid their family bare. He let people know, in his opinion, what it was like behind closed doors of the Beckham family, the most famous family in Britain.

[00:02:51] Speaker 3: Victoria, one-fifth of the global pop phenomenon, the Spice Girls.

[00:02:55] Speaker 9: Girl power.

[00:02:59] Speaker 3: David, a rising star of Manchester United Football Club.

[00:03:03] Speaker 10: Posh Spice, Victoria Adams, finally got what she really, really wanted today, an engagement ring from Manchester United star David Beckham.

[00:03:12] Speaker 3: When they announced their engagement in 1998, Posh and Beck's parents When they announced their engagement in 1998, Posh and Beck's become the celebrity powerhouse couple, and brand Beckham is born.

[00:03:23] Speaker 6: When David Beckham and Victoria Adams got together back in the 90s, it was the biggest news in the UK for a very long time. They literally became front page, OK magazine, Hello magazine, every tabloid. Whatever they did, the cameras followed them.

[00:03:43] Speaker 3: When Victoria falls pregnant, she keeps on performing. Until, under the glare of the world's media, on the 4th of March, 1999, their first son is born.

[00:03:59] Speaker 11: She's very well, she's set up, she's drinking champagne, she's very well. So, what's he called?

[00:04:05] Speaker 12: Brooklyn.

[00:04:05] Speaker 10: All right, and how did you come up with that name?

[00:04:10] Speaker 12: Well, we found out that I was pregnant while I was on tour in America, and we was in Brooklyn when we found out.

[00:04:16] Speaker 10: So, had you actually done it there?

[00:04:18] Speaker 12: No, we didn't do it there.

[00:04:20] Speaker 10: Ah, for real?

[00:04:21] Speaker 4: We did it in Denmark, if you really want to know. People loved the fact that Posh and Beck's had a son, a firstborn. His name was fantastic. He wasn't a Paul or a Simon, no, he was a Brooklyn.

[00:04:34] Speaker 6: When a young person is born into a famous family, their name is commodified from the day they're born, because that is their name. Whatever your parents do, your name is famous.

[00:04:45] Speaker 2: Brooklyn Beckham has never known a time where he has not been presented to the world's media. We've always known what he looked like, even when he was basically an embryo.

[00:04:53] Speaker 5: I think they were the first family to really put a photo of their child still in the hospital into the public domain. It was a very new era of invasive paparazzi, being allowed to stand outside someone's house and take photos all the time.

[00:05:06] Speaker 13: That's it, come down.

[00:05:08] Speaker 5: The intense public scrutiny continues as the family expands. They were two of the most famous people in history. They're the ultimate power couple. How were their children meant to have any sort of life that didn't have their name Beckham and what it means branded all over it?

[00:05:21] Speaker 2: Do you ever come home and go, oh, I've just signed for Real Madrid, we're moving to Spain? Oh, I've signed for LA Galaxy, we're moving to America? And, of course, the kids had to go. So, like, it wasn't a normal childhood where they got to put down roots.

[00:05:33] Speaker 5: I have a famous parent, my mum is Vanessa Phelps, and I have also, obviously, in no way like the Beckhams, but in a very, very tiny way, experienced some of the pressure that you have of having a famous parent, which is this lack of anonymity, this inability to sort of hide yourself.

[00:05:49] Speaker 14: Our priorities are always going to be our families, as much as we want to have fun. One of the main reasons why I think some of us want to do this is for our kids.

[00:06:00] Speaker 2: So, I've met the Beckhams quite a few times. I, you know, full disclosure, I love the Beckhams. I've seen her, the family together, at the launch of the Spice Girls musical, and I remember thinking how polite the children were. I mean, Harper was tiny. Brooklyn had a bit of an American twang. He actually pushed past me at one point and went, excuse me, ma'am. I was like, I'm not that old. But they're just, you know, a really...

[00:06:23] Speaker 4: You can tell they really love each other. David and Victoria Beckham, even though they do have a privileged lifestyle and their children do realise they grew up privileged, they did their best to keep their children real. So, apparently, Brooklyn used to work in a bakery and also, having interviewed lots of celebs who have been around them, like Heidi Klum, she says every time the Beckham kids go to her house for a birthday party, she receives a handwritten thank you note from the Beckham kids.

[00:06:51] Speaker 6: The Beckhams are completely media savvy, but that is a testament to their brilliance, and that shouldn't be seen as a negative. In America, that would be seen as a positive. It's only in the UK that's seen as a possible negative. The Beckhams have built a phenomenal global brand.

[00:07:05] Speaker 2: Part of Brian Beckham was her being this very serious, very sort of moody sort of...

[00:07:10] Speaker 12: I think that a lot of people think of me as, um... ..a stuck-up little cow, probably.

[00:07:20] Speaker 3: In 2016, Victoria registers the name Brooklyn Beckham as an EU trademark.

[00:07:26] Speaker 6: If your name is globally famous like the Beckhams, yes, it is normal to... And sensible, I'd say, not just normal, sensible to trademark any way that name can be used. And clearly, if your name is Beckham and you're the children of the Beckham brand, at some point, you're going to probably use your name, or may use your name, to advance your own career.

[00:07:46] Speaker 5: Having the brand name Brooklyn Beckham trademarked safeguards his name and also gives him business opportunities, but it is a very irregular commodification of a person. And it is saying, we see you as a person, but we also see you as a business opportunity.

[00:08:03] Speaker 3: Aged 18, with the help of his mum and dad, Brooklyn publishes a book of his photography.

[00:08:08] Speaker 15: So supportive. I mean, my mum and dad really helped me as well with this book, so I couldn't have done it without them. Yeah, I mean, I look up to both of them.

[00:08:18] Speaker 4: They put out that image of being the wholesome family with the great family values, and that has worked for them throughout the years, and that's why they're big in America, all over the world. People value that.

[00:08:28] Speaker 2: But Beckham is controlled. They want you to have an image of what it's like, and they put that out there, and they don't want anything that sort of taints that.

[00:08:42] Speaker 3: The youngest of eight children to a wealthy New York investor, Nicola's upbringing is also out of the ordinary.

[00:08:50] Speaker 2: I mean, I'd never heard of Nicola Peltz, really. I knew who her dad was, but I didn't really know who she was. She was sort of like an up-and-coming actress.

[00:08:59] Speaker 4: Nicola and Brooklyn's love story was a very beautiful one. They met together at Coachella, which is a really cool festival in California. They didn't click, first of all, but two years later, they went to a party which was thrown by Hollywood legend Leonardo DiCaprio from Titanic, and their ship did not sink.

[00:09:18] Speaker 3: New Year 2020. Brooklyn and Nicola make their relationship official by posting this pic.

[00:09:25] Speaker 4: Then, within six months, they were engaged. People watched in awe and amazement, because when Brooklyn falls, he falls hard, they were in a bubble.

[00:09:34] Speaker 2: When Brooklyn met Nicola, Victoria was absolutely thrilled about it. They wanted him to date someone of a stature of theirs, so bringing home a billionaire's daughter, I think they were like, this is great. Nicola and Victoria were sharing clothes and make-up and they were besties and they were dancing on the beach and it seemed like she was the most amazing mother-in-law ever.

[00:10:03] Speaker 3: The couple marry in a lavish three-day ceremony at the Peltz family's Palm Beach estate.

[00:10:09] Speaker 4: It was very lavish, very, very private. It wasn't done the same way as the Victoria and David wedding, with a huge celebrity guest list. There were a few celebrities we had, obviously Mark Antony, the wedding singer, and a few choice guests, but it was kind of a bit more classy, I'd say, more of a private affair. They wanted the focus to be on their love.

[00:10:30] Speaker 2: There was a social media blackout. They actually took all the phones off everyone and they gave everybody flip phones. Very old-school, back to the, you know, noughties, to take pictures on.

[00:10:40] Speaker 4: To the public, it was a perfect wedding. But eyebrows were raised because Nicola did not wear a Victoria Beckham design. Instead, she chose Valentino.

[00:10:51] Speaker 2: If your mother is one of the most famous fashion designers in the world, you'd probably think she'd make your wife's wedding dress. And this is where the issues came in, because she did not wear a Victoria Beckham dress and that was deemed as a massive snub.

[00:11:04] Speaker 6: I knew people at the wedding, I knew people involved with the wedding, so I kind of had heard there was an undercurrent of problems, let's say.

[00:11:11] Speaker 4: The Beckhams initially reacted in the way they always do when they heard that there was rumours that Brooklyn and Nicola weren't happy. They kept silent.

[00:11:22] Speaker 3: Despite the speculation, the family continue to show a united front.

[00:11:27] Speaker 4: After the wedding, the next we see of the family all together was at David Beckham's premiere for his Netflix documentary. There are now shots of Nicola looking a bit... Like she wasn't that bothered to do the line-up and Brooklyn gently, you know, bringing her into the fold. You could see a slight division there.

[00:11:49] Speaker 3: A few months later, David and Victoria repay the favour, heading to LA for the red carpet of Nicola's directorial debut, Lola.

[00:11:57] Speaker 1: That meant so much to me for her just to fly in and be there with me that day, and she also made my outfit, which meant so much to me.

[00:12:06] Speaker 3: Christmas 2024 is also a family affair. Brooklyn shares this snap of him with his wife, siblings and parents. It appears to be the last time the entire family are pictured together. But not long after, cracks appear in public.

[00:12:26] Speaker 4: So, David Beckham's 50th was a huge event. All eyes were on that family. All eyes were on the door to see who's going to be coming through, so we had the long-term friends like Gordon Ramsay, Eva Longoria, all these top stars, but everyone was wondering, where is Brooklyn?

[00:12:43] Speaker 2: 2025 was a massive year for David Beckham. He turned 50, he got knighted, his eldest son was at neither of these events. And it was like, why is he not there?

[00:12:53] Speaker 4: There were rumbles and whispers of, you know, arguments between them behind closed doors, between Brooklyn and his parents, but the fact that he did not turn up to his father's own 50th birthday just cemented it for the public. It was war.

[00:13:09] Speaker 2: It just sort of snowballed and snowballed, and these sort of rumours that Nicola was controlling Brooklyn, you know, she's spoilt, she decides everything, you know, whatever she wants, she gets. And I think that's what actually causes Brooklyn the most annoyance, that he's like, the idea that he can't think for himself, and he's being held hostage by his wife, controlled by his wife, that he doesn't have his own thoughts.

[00:13:35] Speaker 3: With rumours swirling, Brooklyn and Nicola decide to do this.

[00:13:40] Speaker 4: When Brooklyn and Nicola renewed their vows, that signified them standing up to the family. They felt, the first time round, that the Beckhams hijacked their wedding, their day. So they took things into their own hands, they took their power back, they did their own renewal, where it was just them and not a single one of the Beckhams were invited. That's a massive slap in the face. And it really ramps up the problems. Armchair detectives were like, what is going on? Social media went mad for it. People were investigating, they were looking at tweets, different pictures, they were looking at everything.

[00:14:12] Speaker 2: Someone noticed they weren't following each other anymore, and the thought seemed to be that the brothers, Cruz and Romeo, had unfollowed Brooklyn. But then Cruz came out and said, no, that's not the case. He blocked us, he blocked all of us, he blocked Mum and Dad. And that was sort of the first proper confirmation, there is a problem.

[00:14:34] Speaker 3: Despite the obvious tensions, no-one could predict... ..what happened next.

[00:14:40] Speaker 4: I was shocked. I thought, wow, Brooklyn really has something to get off his chest.

[00:14:45] Speaker 6: I felt sadness for the family on all sides, you know. He loved his parents, his parents loved him, and there's been massive fallout.

[00:14:54] Speaker 5: When I saw the statement, I was obviously shocked like everyone else and also deeply upset for them that they can't just phone each other and say, when you speak to my wife like that, I don't like it.

[00:15:03] Speaker 4: The lines that stood out to me in that post the most was him accusing his mum of dancing inappropriately at the wedding.

[00:15:11] Speaker 8: My mum hijacked my first dance with my wife. In front of our 500 wedding guests, Mark Anthony called me to the stage. Where in the schedule was planned to be my romantic dance with my wife, instead my mum was waiting to dance. She danced very inappropriately on me in front of everyone.

[00:15:28] Speaker 4: Inappropriately, that's the bit that really stuck with me because that can tarnish her image if people want to take it too far.

[00:15:34] Speaker 2: So there's no videos except for the videos that were filmed on the day by the bride and groom. So Brooklyn Beckham has the only footage of this provocative dance.

[00:15:44] Speaker 3: That dress is also back in the spotlight.

[00:15:48] Speaker 8: 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.

[00:15:57] Speaker 4: There were allegations that Victoria pulled Nicola's dress at the last minute. However, since Brooklyn's allegations have come out, other sources have come out and said, no, that's not the case.

[00:16:08] Speaker 2: I've went back and dug into this a bit because I was like, this just doesn't feel right. And there was an interview with the Beckhams, the Beckham Peltzers and the Beckhams with Vogue at the time, and they talked about the fact that Valentino had been working on the dress for over a year. I just cannot believe a wedding in Vogue, her son, her eldest son's first wedding, she would go at the 11th hour, no, I'm not making this dress to be spiteful because even if she does not like Nicola, it would have been great advertising for her. I just don't know why Victoria wouldn't make the dress.

[00:16:40] Speaker 3: And Brooklyn gives his side of the 50th drama.

[00:16:46] Speaker 8: We still travelled to London for my dad's birthday and were rejected for a week as we waited in our hotel room trying to plan quality time with him. He refused all of our attempts, unless it was at his big birthday party with 100 guests and cameras at every corner.

[00:17:01] Speaker 4: Now, according to Brooklyn, he was asked to see his family without Nicola. That wasn't going to go down for him. He adores Nicola, that's his world.

[00:17:11] Speaker 5: He feels like he was a commodity, he feels like they weren't pleased he was there, they were only pleased if he was there for the photo at the right time. And that is a horrible, dehumanising feeling in your own family, the feeling that your parents only want you to fulfil their purpose.

[00:17:30] Speaker 6: That Instagram message was 100% managed. I'm sure someone will be denying it. That Instagram message was crafted, written and rewritten with PR advisors and a lot of people commenting on it. I do not believe for one minute Brooklyn just did it on the spur of the moment with his wife and put it out there.

[00:17:48] Speaker 5: My feeling is that children start shouting when they feel like their parents aren't listening to them in their normal voice. Except he shouted into the online universe to try and get his clear, overwhelmingly sad and disappointed feelings across to his parents. It makes me feel like he's probably been saying it for a while and this is his last resort.

[00:18:11] Speaker 3: When the post drops, David is preparing to speak at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

[00:18:17] Speaker 13: David, what's your reaction to Brooklyn's statement?

[00:18:19] Speaker 3: Who do you say is your son, Brooklyn, Mr Beckham?

[00:18:21] Speaker 13: Would you like to reconcile with him, David?

[00:18:23] Speaker 3: He evades direct questions and the Beckhams have not responded to the BBC's request for comment. But David does say this in a discussion about young people and social media.

[00:18:35] Speaker 11: We always spoke about social media and the power of social media for the good and for the bad. The bad we've talked about with what kids can access these days. I hate it. It can be dangerous. But what I've found personally, especially with my kids as well, use it for the right reasons.

[00:18:56] Speaker 6: When others go low, go high, say nothing. There's no upside to parents fighting their children via social media. David and Victoria are not going to be talking puppetly.

[00:19:07] Speaker 2: David's had issues over the years and Victoria has too. But they've always rode them out and they haven't been that detrimental.

[00:19:14] Speaker 6: I think most people would look at them as caring, loving parents going through a difficult moment in their lives. It's not going to harm the brand. If anything, it's going to get them sympathy.

[00:19:23] Speaker 4: I think the outcome now will be that Brooklyn will be seen in a whole different light. This is him standing out saying, I'm a man of my own. All this time, he has been criticised in the public eye, people trolling him saying he's got no talent, he's not like his mother or his father. Now people are starting to take notice. Who is this Brooklyn? What is he all about?

[00:19:48] Speaker 5: I wonder whether part of the process of leaving home and separating, getting married to someone else is this critique of your old life. And then after a while, you get a bit more used to it. And then you kind of think, well, actually, I miss you at Christmas and I've now had children and I wish you could come over and meet them. And I wonder whether we've kind of accidentally been witness to this very normal moment of separation in a young adult's life. And if it hadn't been broadcast, none of us would have seen this obvious separation and rupture and exploration of what it means to be an adult.

[00:20:19] Speaker 6: Clearly, they're loving parents. They want to mend relationships with their son. They know, given time, given quietness, given privacy, things will mend eventually and time will heal.

[00:20:47] Speaker 1: ♪ MUSIC ♪ ♪ MUSIC ENDS ♪