David and Victoria Beckham have been pop culture staples for decades, both from their work in their respective fields, and the buzzy goings-on of their family. Now, their oldest son Brooklyn Beckham is starting to shatter people’s perceptions of that.
In a series of Instagram Stories posted on Monday night, Brooklyn confirmed rumors that he has been feuding with his parents, after years of them mistreating his wife, actress and model Nicola Peltz Beckham. He cites their 2022 wedding, and David and Victoria’s behavior surrounding it, as a turning point in the whole ordeal.
“My parents have been trying endlessly to ruin my relationship since before my wedding, and it hasn’t stopped,” Brooklyn’s statement reads in part. “My mum cancelled making Nicola’s dress in the eleventh hour despite how excited she was to wear her design, forcing her to urgently find a new dress. Weeks before our big day, my parents repeatedly pressured and attempted to bribe me into signing away the rights to my name, which would have affected me, my wife, and our future children.”
Brooklyn went on to say that his parents were not budging. “They were adamant on me signing before the wedding date because then the terms of the deal would be initiated. My holdout affected the payday, and they have never treated me the same since. During the wedding planning, my mum went so far as to call me ‘evil’ because Nicola and I chose to include my Nanny Sandra, and Nicola’s Naunni at our table, because they both didn’t have their husbands. Both of our parents had their own tables equally adjacent to ours.”
Elsewhere in the posts, Brooklyn reveals even more details surrounding the wedding, claiming that Victoria “hijacked” his and Nicola’s first dance and “danced very inappropriately.”
“The night before our wedding, members of my family told me that Nicola was ‘not blood’ and ‘not family,'” Brooklyn added elsewhere. “Since the moment I started standing up for myself with my family, I’ve received endless attacks from my parents, both privately and publicly, that were sent to the press on their orders. Even my brothers were sent to attack me on social media, before they ultimately blocked me out of nowhere this last Summer.”
The shocking moment came when Brooklyn detailed his wedding. “My mum hijacked my first dance with my wife, which had been planned weeks in advance to a romantic love song. In front of our 500 wedding guests, Marc Anthony called me to the stage, where the scheduled was planned to be my romantic dance with my wife but instead 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. We wanted to renew our vows so we could create new memories of our wedding day that bring us joy and happiness, not anxiety and embarrassment.”
Brooklyn also claims that his parents value “public promotion and endorsements above all else,” and that their behavior even prior to the wedding contributed to a lifetime of him feeling “overwhelming anxiety.”
“The narrative that my wife controls me is completely backwards,” Brooklyn wrote. “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. I wake up every morning grateful for the life I chose and have found peace and relief. My wife and I do not want a life shaped by image, press, or manipulation. All we want peace, privacy and happiness for us and our future family.”
David addressed the situation during an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Tuesday morning, focusing more on the fact that Brooklyn used social media to make these claims. He said, in part: “I’ve tried to do the same with my children, to educate them. They make mistakes, but children are allowed to make mistakes. That is how they learn. That is what I try to teach my kids. You sometimes have to let them make those mistakes as well.”
While the situation is sure to unfold even further, and some are surely going to turn their nose to the whole ordeal given how wealthy and famous the subjects are, Brooklyn’s feelings are something that plenty of people will surely recognize. It can take years to untangle the examples of abuse and mistreatment a child has endured from their parents over the years, much less to untangle the complicated feelings that come with that. Whether that happens alone and in private, or on a stage as big and public as what Brooklyn is currently in the middle of, hopefully everyone can at least hear his side of the story.
