If you haven’t seen the Beckham documentary on Netflix yet, first of all, you’re missing out, but you’ve most likely seen a TikTok video, or an article about how cute David and Victoria Beckham are, or their iconic style in the 90s. However, I have yet to see posts and articles about how Victoria Beckham deserves an apology for the relentless tabloid bullying she’s endured for the last few decades. In various instances throughout the docuseries, Victoria Beckham recalls being labeled as the villain on many occasions for simply existing.
For those of you who don’t know, prior to Victoria Beckham being the Victoria Beckham, she was Victoria Adams, AKA Posh Spice of the Spice Girls. While many members of Gen Z have basic knowledge of the Spice Girls and their biggest hits, a lot of us weren’t around at the height of their fame in the 90s, so it’s hard to understand just how powerful Victoria was before she became David Beckham’s better half. To put it simply, they were basically the girl power version of One Direction. Moreover, as the 90s progressed, Victoria’s star power eventually found David Beckham’s star power and merged, subsequently, they became one of the hottest power couples of the decade. While the photos of them during this era portray glitz and glamour, the headlines and vitriol spewed at Victoria took center stage, and she was viewed as a distraction that could jeopardize David’s career.
Just before the new millennium, David and Victoria Beckham’s son, Brooklyn, was born and the tabloid bullying got even worse. Headlines such as “Too Posh To Push” were all over newspapers and the couple received threats about people wanting to kidnap their newborn. In Beckham, Victoria sets the record straight about the aforementioned headline; “I wasn’t too posh to push! I was told that it wasn’t safe for me to go into labor.” This is just one of the many quotes from the docuseries in which Victoria shares the truth behind the hurtful tabloids and negative press. The fashion designer also notes that as their family expanded and David’s career progressed to other teams in other countries, the press piled on the hate.
In 2003, David Beckham signed a contract with Real Madrid, a soccer team based in Spain. As a result, the Beckhams moved to Spain, and in one of the episodes, Victoria notes that this was “the unhappiest I’ve been in my life.” Since the Beckhams had two young children at the time, Victoria moved to Spain a few months after David did to allow time for her to find schools for their kids. While this makes sense to the average person, the tabloids portrayed this situation as Victoria being stubborn and unsupportive of her husband’s career. Furthermore, about a year into David’s stint at Real Madrid, his alleged affair was exposed and became international news. On top of this affair being embarrassing for both David and Victoria, the press seemed to think that Victoria could have prevented it had she been more present and supportive of David’s career.
While it’s common knowledge that the press writes exaggerated and hateful headlines for the sake of selling more copies, many of these headlines directed at women create an endless cycle of nastiness and the world awaiting a woman’s next misstep. Between the vicious and racist articles written about Meghan Markle for literally existing to the toxic headlines about Victoria Beckham’s looks and weight, women can’t catch a break. Even though the bullying that Victoria Beckham has endured from the tabloids is not an isolated situation, Beckham gave us an up close and personal view of how deeply this negativity affects someone.