If you hadn't heard, Brooklyn Beckham has blown apart the tightly controlled Beckham brand with a series of Instagram stories that lift the lid on his unhappiness with his parents and the family machine. He says their “controlling” behaviour has made him deeply anxious throughout his life, claims they’ve tried to interfere in his marriage, and has even brought up his mother's behaviour at his wedding to Nicola Peltz.
Victoria and David Beckham have been building their brand since they became a couple in the ’90s, and few celebrity families have achieved anything like their level of global success (up there with the most iconic brands for fame). But it’s back in the '90s, before Brooklyn was even born, that this implosion was foreshadowed. In many ways, it was inevitable.
The ’90s and early 2000s were a brutal time to be famous, and the British press had a laser focus on the Beckhams. From affair rumours and the constant chipping away at Victoria’s character to David’s infamous 1998 red card, they soaked up years of hostility. Living under that kind of pressure isn’t tenable, and it’s easy to imagine how desperate they must have been to make sure it never happened again.
Say what you want about their choice to remain in the public eye, they chose to back themselves as the brand, growing their status (and their bank balances) by presenting a heavily curated version of themselves and, later, their family. As hugely ambitious people, they made themselves the brand – and maybe that felt like the only viable future. After all, Victoria didn't have a clear route out of music, and David's football career was, by design, time-limited.
The result has been a level of control over their lives and family that elevated them into brand royalty. Psychologically and emotionally, that’s a lot – especially when the thing you’re controlling is yourself and your children. And once you’ve built a life around avoiding past media cruelty, letting go must feel like a huge risk.
Through a combination of a long period of flawless PR (remember the public perception of David queuing to see the Queen?) and the sacrifice of anything resembling a normal family dynamic, the Beckhams have arrived at glossy Netflix documentaries that claim to offer an unfiltered view, while remaining tightly self-produced. But it would take a miracle for that to go on forever. Cracks have begun to show in the past year as one of their key brand assets, sorry, children, has begun to go his own way.
Because of everything that came before, this situation feels inevitable. Victoria and David have lived a life terrified of more public negativity and so have created a brand story around their perfect family. Their social media is saturated with public declarations of family love, making even those accounts a big part of the brand itself. So they shouldn't be surprised that Instagram Stories was deemed the perfect place for Brooklyn's statement. Now it's going to be brand damage control for the Beckhams – and I wonder what the right approach will be.
For more on celebrity brands, here are some that are totally nailing it.
