Brand it like the Beckhams

With help from Netflix, Posh and Becks continue to show the world a rosy view of their marriage. As a new biography tells a different story, Rachel Richardson delves a little deeper

- Rachel Richardson

To mark Father’s Day, Victoria took to Instagram to let the world know that husband David was “the best daddy” and her family’s “everything”. David also posted and thanked his wife for being mum to their four children Brooklyn, Romeo, Cruz and Harper, who variously also made it known they were dad’s number one fans. There was no hint that there may have been storm clouds gathering over the Beckham clan. It was business as usual.

Elsewhere, it’s the business of their marriage that is being dissected. While Victoria and David Beckham have spent the last year telling us that their marriage is rock solid, an explosive new book is raising questions about the fairytale love story they’ve pushed.

In his book The House of Beckham, author and investigative journalist Tom Bower has knitted together an alternative narrative of their relationship. In stark contrast to Victoria and David’s carefully curated image, he claims that the couple were living separate lives, barely speaking and that their 27-year partnership had at one point crumbled into a “distant business relationship”.

The only thing that kept them together, according to Bower, was the brand they’ve meticulously built over nearly three decades. He says: “Although the Beckhams could not hide their separate lives, they stuck together to support the brand.”

In an extract published on Sunday, the author claims that the couple hit a devastating low in 2016 when David was spending time in Florida setting up the football club Inter Miami. Meanwhile, Victoria was based in London and was focused on her eponymous fashion label and partnership with Estee Lauder for her first foray into beauty. Their physical distance led to a deep divide and according to Bower, the pair became estranged.