On Monday, Brooklyn Beckham, 26, posted a series of missives on Instagram aimed at his parents, the football icon David Beckham and the fashion designer Victoria Beckham, that have since ricocheted around the internet and turned the family’s rift into global headlines.
Rumors of a feud between the eldest Beckham son and his parents bubbled to a boiling point last year when Brooklyn was absent from his father’s 50th birthday celebrations in London.
Through his posts, Brooklyn essentially confirms the rift, painting an image of his family that sits at odds with the presentation put forward by both Sir David and Victoria on their social media accounts and in two recent Netflix documentaries, “Beckham” and “Victoria Beckham,” where the family is shown as close and jovial. Those images are highly controlled, “inauthentic” and little more than a “facade,” Brooklyn claims in his one-sided Instagram posts, adding that he doesn’t want to “reconcile” with his family. His family has not responded to accusations or to requests for comment.
Below is what we know.
What, exactly, is Brooklyn accusing his parents of?
The most explosive of Brooklyn’s long list of woes is that his parents have “been trying endlessly” to ruin his relationship with his wife, Nicola Peltz, and have acted in ways that soured their star-studded wedding in 2022.
He claims in his posts that, before the wedding, his parents pressured him into “signing away the rights to my name” and that his mother “cancelled” making Nicola’s wedding dress “in the eleventh hour.” There was also tension around the seating plans, he added.
During the wedding, Brooklyn claims that his mother, a former Spice Girl, “hijacked” his first dance with his wife. Instead of their scheduled romantic dance, he said, “Marc Anthony called me to the stage” where “my mum was waiting to dance with me instead.”
“She danced very inappropriately on me in front of everyone. I’ve never felt more uncomfortable or humiliated in my entire life,” he wrote.
Is there evidence of this dance?
No videos of this dance have surfaced on the internet. But a Vogue feature about the wedding night claims that the newly wed couple had performed their first dance to Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling In Love,” sung by the South African performer Lloyiso.
This is where things get murky, though: The Instagram account Deuxmoi, which shares celebrity gossip submitted by anonymous sources, posted a screenshot of a tip from someone at the wedding who had nodded to an awkward singing performance by Mr. Anthony, a dance between Victoria and Brooklyn and a tense atmosphere. The claims could not be verified by The New York Times.
Do we know anything else about the wedding dress?
While Brooklyn claims that his wife had to pivot to find a new dress at the last minute, the Vogue feature suggests that Ms. Peltz, daughter of the billionaire investor Nelson Peltz, worked with Valentino for a year to design a custom dress.
What else does Brooklyn claim?
Brooklyn also addresses his absence from his father’s birthday party, claiming that he and Nicola were “rejected” when they tried to plan quality time with David.
“He refused all of our attempts, unless it was at his big birthday party with a hundred guests and cameras at every corner,” he said in his post. “When he finally agreed to see me, it was under the condition that Nicola wasn’t invited. It was a slap in the face.”
The Beckham son, who has spent his entire life under the public glare and peppered by paparazzi, also claims that because his parents have controlled the narrative around their family life, he has grown up with “overwhelming anxiety” and that his brothers attacked him on social media before blocking him last year.
How are people reacting?
Neither David nor Victoria has responded to requests for comment. Others in their orbit, including Ms. Peltz’s family, her stylist on her wedding day, Valentino or the producers of the two Netflix documentaries, have also not responded.
But of course social media has taken to dissecting every word in Brooklyn’s statement. Some are siding with him and his wife, cheering him for speaking up. Others are comparing this feud between Britain’s pop royal family with another royal feud — Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s departure from the Palace.
And on Tuesday, during a wide-ranging CNBC interview in Davos, David said children make mistakes on social media though he was not specifically speaking about the feud.
He goes on: “Children are allowed to make mistakes, that’s how they learn.”
Alisha Haridasani Gupta is a Times reporter covering women’s health and health inequities.
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