Beckham

[bert3400]

Just binged watched the whole 4 episodes . What a lovely flawed family, I really think they are completely made for each other. It was also amazing watching all the highs and lows of his football career, but god we should be ashamed of what the England supporters put him through when he slipped up in the world cup against Argentina, what he went through was horrific .

I think Victoria is fabulous and I would love to be friends with her. It’s clear she’s the one who kept the family together and has had to keep it all going while he made decisions without discussing them with her and expected her to go along. The LA move was obviously a good decision for her and she liked their time there but as soon as they were there he was off back to Paris and as soon as he retired he was off starting up football leagues. I can see why she wasn’t that thrilled.

I'm really surprised by how few posters on this thread realise that this "documentary" is a full on Beckham controlled PR exercise. It's not a true independent documentary in any sense.

You can see it clearly - the example given about him saying they wanted to keep their baby private and then 10 seconds later are waving him around at their wedding in OK magazine.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-beckham-documentary-is-little-more-than-pr/

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/sep/30/netflix-i-came-to-love-david-beckham-how-an-oscar-winning-succession-star-put-goldenballs-wild-life-on-screen

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-12598603/MAUREEN-CALLAHAN-David-Beckham-Victoria-Netflix-documentary-Sussex-playbook-REAL-Posh-Becks-scandals.html

It was well known in media circles that Beckham played away from home. I learned about Sarah Marbeck ( described to me as a woman he slept with in hotel in Singapore) about 2 years before it was published from a group of journalists who were friends with a mutual friend. It's not a great surprise it is really, he was good looking, ultra famous, ultra wealthy, very fit and physically at his peak and away from home a lot with a lot of opportunity. I think all men apart from the asexual in that situation would have some affairs over a lifetime, it goes with the terriority. If you marry a footballer you are signing up to that life really. & ultimately -so what? He obviously loves his wife and children and stayed with them. The point is that this is all very smoothed over PR.

https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/becks-model-was-callgirl-7232129.html

https://www.smh.com.au/world/i-was-his-singapore-fling-australian-model-20040412-gdipvi.html

They would've kept Brooklyn out of the papers initially as they would've struck a deal with Hello magazine probably before she even gave birth. That was always the way back then , Hello paid loads and then published the photos of celeb weddings / babies/ engagements/ all the big events.

You think all decent looking rich men have affairs?
You set the bar very low.

It’s a fair point about it being a PR exercise. I thought they came over well but then I didn’t really expect complete honesty about their relationship or affairs. I found the football parts the most interesting because I assume it’s close to what actually happened, given how many people are there giving their memories of the same events.

to be fair she said 'good looking, ultra famous, ultra wealthy, very fit and physically at his peak and away from home a lot with a lot of opportunity.' so a bit more than just wealthy and good looking.

I think the ultra famous part is the clincher. Everywhere you went people would be signalling that they were sexually available to you. Little to no effort needed on your part.

The odds of such a man being faithful is pretty low I'd think.

I agree with that guardian review that the biggest surprise was that Roy Keane liked him 😆 and Gary Neville seemed quite annoyed by him!

Agree. Add to that, he didn’t have a normal childhood / teenagehood / even young adulthood of meeting girls and dating - he was fixated on football.

Victoria was his first real girlfriend.

Suddenly, you’re world famous + drop-dead gorgeous and women are offering themselves to you on a plate. You’ve never really sown your wild oats.

It would take a near Saint to always resist. And for the hard-of-comprehension - I’m not saying only saintly men don’t cheat. I’m painting a very specific scenario, and saying in that scenario (the one outlined in the paragraph above to be very clear), he’d be a better man than many if he didn’t.

I don’t doubt he absolutely adored Victoria when they first got together and almost certainly does still love her very much. But I also wouldn’t be in the least surprised to learn that a fair number of wild oats were sown when that infatuation calmed down into something less intense.

Reading this, I wonder if Cheryl regrets leaving Ashley Cole over his affairs. I recently read her autobiography and it was so sad as she seemed so distraught about that relationship ending. Anyway, I digress. I do think VB must have decided there was more to lose on ending things with him over his cheating than just putting up with it, she was probably right.

It’s one big PR stunt. Amazed too at how many have fallen for it.
His body language to her- even in publicity pics is so cold. He flinches at her touch and barely ever leans in/ looks/ makes any effort to retain closeness. It’s all her. The affairS. The openly eyeing up cheerleaders/ other women in public. Honestly anyone who still falls for it needs their heads examining.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-5917477/amp/David-Victoria-Beckham-pack-PDA-dismissing-divorce-rumours.html

www.elle.com/uk/life-and-culture/culture/a22068328/body-language-expert-victoria-david-beckham-anniversary-poses/

These photos - Victoria looked so unhappy, and distant from David she even had to issue statement saying she wasn’t upset??! These photos at a Royal wedding- days after divorce rumours were circulating and they issued statement denying it. Come on people wake up!!

www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-5747611/amp/Victoria-Beckham-effortlessly-chic-navy-midi-dress-joins-husband-David-Royal-Wedding.html

www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/victoria-david-beckham-living-sexless-13189638?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target

So what if it is a PR stunt? I don’t get what the big deal is.

I’m not in the UK, for what it’s worth.

I don’t need to waken up and I don’t need to trawl the internet to find photos and speculation from 2018. Unless you actually know the couple then you don’t know what’s going on in their marriage.

I have been with DH over 20 years and I have such a resting bitch face. If paps ever took photos of us, you’d likely see some that show me looking unhappy. A couple of photos doesn’t show a relationship. It’s a documentary. Of course it’s PR. Watch it or don’t but please don’t patronise me.

when i said i wanted to watch this someone said, oh its just their point of view,
a comment i dont understand
what other point of view should i watch
what have they done wrong that they need to be vilified?

anyway, i will watch it, soon.

Gary Neville is his best friend, it's all friendly banter and sarcasm between the two of them!

I think deducing what you are deducing from photos is ridiculous.

No doubt he’s a massive ego and incredibly hard work and has cheated but I think it’s fairly clear there is love and commitment to family there

Exactly.

What are people so worried about? That he’s going to get a knighthood or something?

So?

It’s ridiculous to decide a long-term couple with four kids is divorcing based on how affectionate they are in public photos.

I’ve finished the documentary now. I think DB was very lost after he left Man United and never completely recovered. VB has clearly held it all together and provided him with the strength he needed to get through it all. Maybe he has had affairs - I certainly think he had one with Rebecca Loos after that documentary - but they clearly have a good partnership.

Loads of people said it

I have just finished the series and really enjoyed it.

I’d forgotten how beautiful Beckham had been when he was younger and I liked the fact that there were clips of the footballers from the Real Madrid team joking about how good looking he was and they weren’t used to working with beautiful people and how they all wanted his hair style 😂

I vaguely remember the “kick incident” but I wasn’t a football fan at the time so I had no idea of the enormity of it all until I watched this series. I found it very hard to watch that particular episode as I can’t even imagine what he had to go through.

I absolutely loved the impression it gave of football teams being like a family and how they all looked after each other, and I really believe that was true, but then on the other side I can’t believe how he was treated by the Man U and Real Madrid Managers. Just awful.

Ine thing that was really shitty though was to leave Victoria to have her CS alone whilst he went to a photo shoot with Beyoncé and J-Lo followed by him making the birth announcement like some proud dad?! How did Victoria ever forgive him for that?

In terms of the state of their marriage - who knows. I would like to think there is genuine love and happiness there, but I kind of get the feeling that Victoria led a very lonely life as his wife and she was never one of his priorities.

I certainly don’t think their life is as “happy families” as the end of the series tried to make out it is….

@HeadAgainstWall0923 on the contrary I never found Beckham attractive and looking back at the footage I concurred I was right and he wasn’t attractive at all in my opinion. He’s better now although I have a personal aversion to neck tattoos

I was never attracted to him at all either when he was at his peak and I often wondered what all the hype was about.

But looking back on all that footage I can see that he was an attractive guy even if I didn’t appreciate it at the time.

I enjoyed it . The way they addressed the Rebecca loos situation ( obviously without naming her) was good PR.

I do think this documentary has sparked more questions than answers though. If they set out to portray themselves as a great love story, I feel like that has backfired somewhat and instead just shone a light where they probably didn’t want it to.

I agree that Victoria has probably been quite lonely and I think she has suffered in silence a lot.

I think this documentary set out to portray what an exceptional footballing talent he was and I think it did that. Their relationship is really none of anyone else’s business to be fair and I certainly didn’t feel like it was the focus of the documentary or that they were trying to portray it in any particular way, but people are nosy and will speculate. Myself included in that.

I do think it raises far more questions than it answers about their relationship to be honest, so in that respect - for all those flapping ‘it’s just a big PR stunt!!’ - you can calm down a bit, because it hasn’t been an unmitigated PR success on that front (still not sure why the likes of @mollyminniemo is flapping quite so much - maybe they can enlighten us? Are you a West Ham fan with some sort of grudge?! ).

As someone with zero interest in football, however, it was quite a revelation. .

I knew Beckham was a good footballer, but only because he was famous for it, not because I’d seen him play. The most I remember from back in the day is perhaps a highlight clip on the news, or a photo of him in the paper doing his post-goal Jesus stance in front of the euphoric crowd. Oh, and Hugh Grant’s famous reference in Love Actually!

What I didn’t really have a personal understanding of was what a skilled, intuitive player he was. Both his ability to score remarkable goals, often snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, as well as his ability to set up goals for so many other players. He was also, clearly, incredibly hard-working.

So on that front, it was a highly successful PR stunt - highlighting not only to people like me for whom ‘Posh and Becks’ was my era, but also for everyone who’s come along since and wasn’t witness to his career in action.