‘They're perfect – until they aren't': why are people so interested in the Beckxit beef?

The Guardian

13 hours ago

If the biggest feud of the week belongs to Donald Trump and Elon Musk, then the longest running is arguably 'Beckxit'.
The name given to the fallout between one of the most famous couples in the world – David and Victoria Beckham – and their less famous eldest son, Brooklyn and his wife, Nicola Anne Peltz, was coined by the Daily Mail this year. But it covers a broader conflict that began in 2022, when Peltz wore Valentino instead of Victoria Beckham to her wedding, and brings us to this week's lavish cover-shoot for German Glamour magazine in which the Beckhams junior discuss their 'occasionally messy, very real love' and whether they might open a restaurant – without a word about her in-laws.
Such are the vagaries of celebrity beef, no one really knows what happened in between. But things had clearly ratcheted up when photos of David's 50th birthday party last month appeared online – with no sign of Brooklyn. Further details involving Romeo Beckham's now-ex-girlfriend, various tattoos and a failure to attend one of Victoria's fashion shows began bubbling up, and soon Beckxit had become a reality.
Since then every appearance and Instagram post has been picked over by media outlets and armchair journalists alike. Within hours of the Glamour shoot appearing online, the Daily Mail were speculating in one of their 52 stories (and counting) over whether the interview was proof that the feud was far from over.
The timing of the Glamour piece was terrible or brilliant, 'depending on whose publicist you were', says PR agent Mark Borkowski, who helped revive Noel Edmonds' career. But however you look at it, it is 'absolutely a war of spin', he says, of the shoot. 'It's what I call a visual soundbite. These images often don't always have the meaning we imbue them with,' he says. 'But we still feed off of it because we are all culprits driven by twitching.' Dr Kadian Pow, a lecturer in sociology at Birmingham City University, agrees. 'The PR moves have to be connected,' she says. 'It's another power play between the two parties.'
From the Times of India to Jordanian paper Amman, coverage of this three-year family 'feud' has been extraordinary – especially considering we'll probably never know the truth, nor do we really care. So why are people compelled to read on?
'It's about titillation, and it's about power [and] the Beckhams', says Pow, 'But more widely, these tales are an escape from the doom and political reality [of the news cycle]' says Pow. 'We are fascinated because they are supposed to be richer and better than us – so when we see a flaw that mirrors us ordinary folk and our everyday fallouts, it makes us feel better about ourselves'
In The Stars in our Eyes, Julie Klam's 2017 book exploring our fascination with celebrities, celebrity-watching is compared to a fun-house mirror, as if celebrities are constructed to keep ourselves in check. 'If we can get a handle on our relationship to celebrity', Klam writes, 'we can better understand ourselves.' Celebrities are perfect, she says, until they aren't.
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Gossip is not without its victims though, warns Mark Stephens, a media lawyer at Howard Kennedy, citing the media's part in the divorce between Paula Yates and Bob Geldof. Just as newspapers have dedicated Beckham correspondents, there is an entire Tiktok cottage industry of amateur sleuthing which capitalises on other people's difficulties for clicks and profit. Most of this is unregulated of course. 'And there are libel laws that bring to bear [legal action], but the harm is usually done by that point', says Stephens.
Still, fights and breakups are life's great equaliser and occasionally, says Pow, when the stars are as big as the Beckhams, these feuds can be 'a shared experience, which is particularly salient in what has become an increasingly siloed society', she says. 'There isn't a lot of monoculture left, but these big juicy stories allow us to whisper together.'
Indeed, celebrity feuds have been entertaining us for centuries. In medieval Italy, the satirist Pietro Aretino was supposedly employed by the French king to write propaganda about the Spanish king, while being paid by the Spanish king to write propaganda about the French king. It was a weaponising of gossip on a par with 2019's Wagatha Christie, in which the machinations of back-stabbing celebrity wives turned Instagram into a global whodunnit. These public disagreements don't just sit within the divorce courts and red tops, but on social media. 'The 2014 elevator beef between Jay Z and Solange was a pivotal moment and how these moments are shared' says Pow, of the leaked CCTV footage of Beyonce's sister hitting the rapper over a supposed infidelity.
Sometimes these fights feel curated – and often are. At present, some gossip sites are suggesting the feud has been confected to drum up publicity for Victoria's forthcoming Netflix documentary this October.
One reason for the intense Beckxit media interest is that it involves two nepo babies (Peltz is also a billionaire heiress). 'These children are looking to monetise their lives, yet are in economic competition not just with their peer-group, but also their parents,' says Stephens. This is particularly uncomfortable for the Beckham 'brand' which is built on family. Victoria and David came of age 'in full tabloid glare', says Stephens. '[But with the offspring] it's harder – what you have is a case of children growing and boundary finding, except in the public eye.'
'I do think people believe that the kids of celebrities are fair game' says Klam. 'But I do not. Nepo babies have it worse than normal people because everyone thinks they've had everything handed to them.' Still, she says, 'now that Brooklyn is choosing to be in the spotlight, well, he is fair game. It's not like he decided to be a shepherd or something.'