The Beckhams’ Very Public Family Meltdown
This past week, after the semi-famous Brooklyn Beckham confirmed, via Instagram, a long-simmering rift with his very famous parents, people urgently wanted to know: What happened at his wedding? The intrigue stemmed from Brooklyn’s contention that his parents, David and Victoria Beckham, the English former football star and Spice Girl, had tried to ruin his relationship with his wife, Nicola Peltz, before their marriage, in 2022. In his post, Brooklyn accused his parents of pressuring him to sign away the rights to his family name in the weeks leading up to the wedding. He claimed that they referred to Peltz as “not blood” and “not family,” that they disrespected her, and that Victoria, who runs her own fashion label, had cancelled making Peltz’s dress “at the eleventh hour.” (Peltz wore Valentino haute couture instead.)
Most gripping, for those following along online—in the U.K., that was pretty much everyone—he described how his mother “hijacked” the couple’s first dance. “In front of our 500 wedding guests, Marc Anthony called me to the stage, where in the schedule was planned to be my romantic dance with my wife but instead my mum was waiting to dance instead,” Brooklyn wrote. “She danced very inappropriately on me in front of everyone. I’ve never felt more uncomfortable or humiliated in my entire life.” He went on to say that the experience was so distressing that he and Peltz recently renewed their vows, “so we could create new memories of our wedding day that bring us joy and happiness, not anxiety and embarrassment.”
Weddings have a way of bringing out the worst in families—whose special day is it, really?—and the Beckhams are no exception. The event seems to have been a catalyst for Brooklyn. “I have been silent for years and made every effort to keep these matters private,” he wrote in his Instagram post. “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.” Brooklyn’s anger is on full display. He writes like a man backed into a corner. “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,” he went on. “For my entire life, my parents have controlled narratives in the press about our family. The performative social media posts, family events and inauthentic relationships have been a fixture of the life I was born into.”
The post, far from defusing the situation, has ignited a frenzy. On TikTok, actors pretending to be Brooklyn and Victoria danced inappropriately to songs including “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls. (“So tell me what you want, what you really, really want”) The wedding took place at the Peltz family home, in Palm Beach, Florida, and cost an estimated three million dollars. (Peltz comes from her own formidable family. Her father, Nelson Peltz, is an American billionaire and Republican donor. She is one of eight siblings.) Wedding guests were reportedly required to lock away their phones on arrival. British Vogue, reporting on the nuptials at the time, named the song “Only Fools Rush In” by the South African artist Lloyiso, as the newlyweds’ first-dance tune. On Friday, however, the couple’s wedding d.j., Tony Marnach, who goes by the name DJ Fat Tony, told a British network that after Marc Anthony called Brooklyn and his mother onstage for a dance, Peltz ran from the room in tears. “The whole situation was really awkward for everyone in the room,” he said. Yikes!
