As David Beckham receives his long-coveted knighthood, just one thing threatens Brand Beckham now
The path has not been a straightforward one, but finally the title is his – if only he and Lady B didn’t have another fight on their hands, writes Jessica Barrett
Standing in line to greet King Charles at the Chelsea Flower Show last month, David Beckham had rarely looked so delighted. Wearing the King’s rose in his lapel, Beckham was seen smiling from ear to ear as he spoke quietly with the monarch, who was accompanied by Queen Camilla. It was reported that Charles had leaned in and said, “You got it, didn’t you?” to which Beckham replied: “It was incredible, thank you. It was very kind.”
Speculation was sparked that the “it” to which the king was referring was a letter inviting the former England captain to accept a knighthood – an honour that Beckham has infamously been chasing for years. That speculation was seemingly confirmed last week when reports suggested that Beckham was to receive a knighthood as part of the King’s birthday celebrations today.
The signs were there. As well as the chummy Chelsea Flower Show meet-up, Beckham was formally made a charity ambassador by the King last year. He invited Beckham, a keen beekeeper and gardener, to Highgrove to learn more about the King’s Foundation, which focuses on “creating better communities where people, places and the planet can coexist in harmony”.
That’s not his only charity accolade; as well as running his US soccer team, Inter Miami CF, Beckham spends a huge amount of time fundraising for Unicef, for whom he asked for donations to celebrate his 50th birthday last month (as well as posing for a commemorative topless cover of Men’s Health, because this is David Beckham, after all).
Some might say that Beckham has slogged away for this knighthood more than most of its recipients. It has been one of showbiz’s worst-kept secrets that he has long coveted the accolade, after first receiving an OBE in 2003.
The path to a knighthood has not been a straightforward one, however. He was first put forward for a knighthood in 2011 after helping to secure the London 2012 Olympics. He was, however, said to have been blocked from getting the title by the Honours Committee after becoming caught up in a tax avoidance scheme, along with many other stars at the time.
Some years later, in 2017, several British newspapers printed details of leaked emails in which Beckham allegedly criticised the honours system and the honours committee after his honour was rejected. In one, he is reported to have called the honours committee a “bunch of c**ts” and lambasted Katherine Jenkins because she got an OBE “for what? Singing at the rugby and going to see the troops, plus taking coke. F***ing joke.”
It was a big departure from the footballer who has worked hard at presenting a sweet nature and mild manner. A spokesperson for Beckham said at the time that the emails were "hacked", "doctored" and "private", and yet the story was blamed for derailing the chance of a knighthood under Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, at least. Many thought it would finally come in 2022, after he spent 13 hours queuing with the public to pay his respects at Queen Elizabeth’s coffin, which lay in state in Westminster, but he was still left off the list.
Big sighs of relief are in order for the Beckhams, then, that their patriarch is finally part of this elite club. There have always been those who have questioned why it means so much to Beckham, to which those closest to him have said it became a borderline “obsession” because it was something he was failing at despite trying his darndest. Beckham “isn’t very good at not being the winner”.
Now, with his title about to be firmly in place, his wife of almost 26 years, fashion designer Victoria Beckham, finds herself a “lady” – her jokey “Posh” moniker from her Spice Girls days finally a reality. The Wannabe lyrics said, after all, that Victoria is a “real lady”, and now, she is. It certainly is a seal of society approval for the couple who infamously posed on gold thrones for photographs at their 1999 wedding, and, more recently, have been playing lord and lady of the manor at their £12m Cotswolds home, just outside Chipping Norton, where they have an orchard, apiary and chicken coop.
The couple have been working hard to reinvent themselves for a new and more grown-up chapter. Their 2023 Netflix documentary pointedly marked their pivot to country living, opening with footage of David collecting honey from his beehive (the product itself isn’t for sale but has been given various names from DB’s Sticky Stuff, to Golden Beez, to Sticky Vicky) as well as tending to his chickens.
The documentary, titled simply Beckham, was filled with intimate looks at the couple’s apparently irreverent dynamic and hammered home their mantra that family – both their parents and their four children, Brooklyn, Romeo, Cruz and Harper – is everything to them. Viewers were offered sweet romantic moments, giving those of us who have been living under the reign of Posh and Becks for decades a rare look at what’s behind their manicured exterior.
A clip of the couple sweetly dancing to “Islands in the Stream” went viral, with other couples sharing their own dances on TikTok. Directed by Fisher Stevens, it’s worth noting that the film was also carefully controlled by the couple, produced as it was by David’s own content company, Studio 99. The documentary won an Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series, marking yet another new career relaunch for David.
While some people on the honours list will rarely use the titles being bestowed on them, it is unlikely that this will be the case with the Beckhams. Not only will they revel in being the new lords of the manor in town, the ‘Sir’ and ‘Lady’ titles, then, will open new doors for the couple who are already so influential, not to mention worth an estimated £500m.
After many years in the red, Victoria’s fashion company Victoria Beckham Holdings Ltd saw revenue growth of more than 50 per cent in 2023, meanwhile her eponymous beauty brand has reported its third consecutive year of double-digit growth, bucking the trend of much of the luxury market. She has her own Netflix documentary in the works, directed by Nadia Hallgren and set to premiere later this year, which will delve into her reinvention as a creative director. David, meanwhile, has his knighthood, US soccer team, multiple brand deals with companies such as Hugo Boss and SharkNinja, and his foray into TV and film production.
There’s no doubt that David and Victoria would be successful on their own, but this constant growth for Brand Beckham hinges on their power as a couple – and as a family. Some have said they have learnt a lot from “power families” like the Kardashians. The added affiliations with King Charles handily come at a time when things were starting to wobble for Brand Beckham, threatening to cast shade on their booming business.
Just as David was celebrating his 50th birthday, reports of a feud between Brooklyn and his parents started emerging. As their eldest son shunned all of his dad’s birthday celebrations (and the photo opportunities that came with them), the latest report claims that the eldest Beckham offspring has now entirely cut ties with his family.
Troubled waters have been rumoured ever since the aspiring chef married Nicola Peltz during a £3m wedding in April 2022 at her family’s $76m Palm Beach estate. Although they were formerly regularly featured on one another’s social media accounts, and Brooklyn and Nicola attended his mother’s fashion shows in Paris, they have been notably absent from any family get-togethers for months.
And the rift doesn’t seem to be going away either. Brooklyn and Nicola even posed for a cover shoot for Glamour magazine last month with the incendiary headline, “For Brooklyn and Nicola Peltz Beckham, love conquers all”.
This kind of feud, which is playing out so publicly in the tabloids, is said to be Victoria’s “worst nightmare”, particularly as the family’s closeness has been so central to their core narrative. It is said to have been most devastating that the rift has also appeared to extend to his siblings, with whom he was once very close.
A recent video posted by Brooklyn showed him riding a motorcycle around Beverly Hills with Nicola on the back. The caption read, “My whole world x I will love you forever x I always choose you baby x you’re the most amazing person i know xx me and you forever baby."
It will all be of great concern to Brand Beckham from both a personal and professional point of view, particularly as Victoria and David have spent many years perfecting their shows of public unity, regardless of what might be going on behind the scenes. Friends say that they are hoping that this will be something that they can mend “sooner rather than later”, although Brooklyn is not said to have congratulated David on his knighthood at the time of writing.
But as the celebration at the palace beckons, at least Beckham is in good company with King Charles, who is having to battle estrangement from his son too. As Harry found out, nobody is bigger than the show – and the Beckham dynasty will survive as it has always done.
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