David and Victoria Beckham have shared insight into the early days of their relationship.
In a teaser trailer for the upcoming Netflix documentary Beckham, the former Spice Girls member revealed that she and her soon-to-be husband were told to keep their relationship out of the public eye.
“My manager kept saying: ‘Try and keep it under wraps,’” Victoria said in the trailer. “So we would meet in car parks and that’s not as seedy as it sounds.”
The teaser then cuts to a clip of David, who cheekily said: “Classic.”
In the four-part Netflix documentary, which is due for release in the US and UK on 4 October, David’s mother also revealed that she believed her son would “lose everything” when he began a relationship with Victoria at the height of his soccer career.
“We were worried he would lose everything he worked for because football had always come first and then all of a sudden it wasn’t,” his mother, Sandra Georgina West, said in the teaser.
The longtime couple, who have been married for 24 years, began their romance in 1997 when Victoria was Posh Spice of the Spice Girls and David was playing with Manchester United. “She came to a football match - soccer match - and I said hi from across the room and that was it,” David once recalled during an appearance on the Ellen Degeneres Show. “I thought I’d missed my chance, and then a week later she turned up at another football match.”
For their second meeting, the retired soccer star revealed on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon: “We talked for about an hour in the players’ lounge and then she actually got the train up that day, so she wrote her number down on her train ticket, which I still have.”
Victoria wrote of the moment they met in the Manchester United players’ lounge in a letter to her younger self published in British Vogue. “While the other football players stand at the bar drinking with their mates, you will see David standing aside with his family. (He’s not even in the first team at this stage - you are the famous one),” she wrote. “And he has such a cute smile. You, too, are close to your family, and you will think how similar he feels to you.”
She continued: “He’s going to ask for your number. (He still has the London-to-Manchester plane ticket on which you wrote it.)
“I’m afraid that most of your first dates will be in car parks, which is not as seedy as it sounds. It is because your manager, Simon Fuller, will warn you: ‘Don’t let anyone see you out together or you’ll get hounded.’ At the time, you won’t understand why.”
David and Victoria announced they were engaged in January 1998. Later that year, the couple announced they were expecting their first child together. Their eldest son, Brooklyn Beckham, was born in March 1999. Shortly after, David and Victoria tied the knot in July at Luttrellstown Castle outside Dublin, Ireland.
The couple later went on to welcome three more children: son Romeo James, born in 2002; son Cruz David, born in 2005; and daughter Harper Seven, born in 2011.
The pro athlete and the fashion designer recently celebrated 24 years of marriage in July. To celebrate the occasion, the pair shared anniversary tributes to each other on Instagram.
“On this day 4.7.99 24 years and counting,” David captioned a photo, which showed the couple in their early twenties, posing as they cradled two identical puppies. “To the best wife, mummy & drinking partner,” he continued, before concluding: “Happy Anniversary love u so much.”
In a separate Instagram post, Victoria shared a series of photos of the pair embracing each other, writing in the caption: “Still holding hands and still laughing (with you not just at you)... I love you so much @davidbeckham xx.”
