If anyone says they haven’t been eagerly awaiting Netflix’s four-part docuseries about David Beckham, they’re telling fibs. Beckham is finally out this week and heat was lucky enough to get a sneak peek at the first two episodes, which provide a rare insight into the very start of “Posh and Becks”, and how they almost never were the iconic love story we know now – straight from the horses’ mouths.
And it seems we weren’t the only ones watching Beckham like it was this year’s Oscar Best Picture winner. An insider close to the family tells heat, “The finished cut has been so emotional for David, and it’s really hit home that Vic has always been there for him.”
The couple first met in 1997, when he was a 21-year-old Manchester United player, and she was one fifth of the world’s most famous girl band. Of course, they already knew who each other were, but they hadn’t formally been introduced. But as they reveal, they fancied each other immediately. In episode one, David admits that the first time he saw the Spice Girls on TV, he turned to teammate Gary Neville and said, “I’m going to marry… the posh one, the one in the black dress.”
David, 48, and Victoria, 49, spent the first three months of their relationship trying to keep it a secret from the press by meeting in car parks. It was even revealed that he once drove from Manchester to London to spend less than ten minutes together. Never mind the carbon emissions, two superstars were falling in love!
Naturally, a world-class footballer and a pop icon were the perfect bait for paparazzi and almost overnight “Posh and Becks” was born, with Vogue editor Anna Wintour saying, “When you have two charismatic people, it doubles the volume.”
Everyone was buying what they were selling. Everyone except for Sir Alex Ferguson. David Beckham’s Man United manager, Sir Alex wasn’t too pleased to see his star player dating a global pop icon. As David’s former teammate Paul Ince reveals, “Sir Alex would buy players, not just because they were talented, but he’d look at their backgrounds. He liked the fact you were going home to someone because he wanted you to be stable.”
So, when David started to build a career off the pitch as well as on it – making money from brand deals, travelling around with the Spice Girls and developing a taste for the finer things – his boss was taking notice. Victoria admits that “[Alex] thought I was a distraction and that I was going to jeopardise his career”. But David says his wife gave him confidence outside the game, and he “needed that at the time”.
However, as things started to get more serious, David’s parents and teammates worried about his career. All of this came to a head the night before England’s World Cup match against Argentina in 1998, when – as she reveals in the documentary – Posh called Becks to tell him she was pregnant with their first child.
This was a career-defining match for David, who, as all England football fans will remember, got sent off with a red card. England ended up losing on penalties, but it was his mistake that got the blame. He then faced a torrent of abuse from fans and the press. Looking back at that time, Victoria admits it was hell, saying, “It pained me so much. I still want to kill those people.”
And David credits his wife for getting him through those dark years, when he couldn’t go anywhere without being booed, threatened or verbally abused. He says, “She was definitely the biggest reason that I got through that time.” heat’s source adds, “David can firmly see that she’s the one who achieved it all for him, at great personal sacrifice sometimes. No one could ever have loved him as much as Victoria.”
Now, after 24 years of marriage and four babies – Brooklyn, 24, Romeo, 21, Cruz, 18 and Harper, 12 – as well as some very well recorded ups and downs, it’s fair to say they’ve stood the test of time. Our insider says, “Their marriage has often been complicated and there’s been an element of friction between them and all they’ve gone through in the past. At times, it seemed like they wouldn’t make it, but here they are, stuck together like glue.”
And it seems, with all that reminiscing, it’s the perfect time for Brand Beckham to monetise their eternal devotion. Last week, Victoria released three perfumes under her beauty label, and they’re all named after symbolic markers of her and David’s relationship. There’s Portofino 97 (their first trip together), San Ysidro Drive (their Beverly Hills address when their family relocated in 2007), and Suite 302 (memories of weekends spent in Paris). Of the latter, she says, “We would either stay at the Hotel Costes or the Ritz. I can still remember the feel of everything. The heavy burgundy curtains, how dark it was in the Costes, how we’d come out of the hotel and there would always be paparazzi in the street.
“I was wearing lots of Dolce and Gabbana, all the big hair… it was very sexy.”