Brooklyn Beckham’s Tawdry Tantrum

A nother British drama has gone viral in the United States. No, not Downton Abbey, but the public breakup of nepo baby Brooklyn Beckham from his family.

As with the Prince Harry and Meghan Markle saga, Brooklyn lodged scathing accusations against his clan — after he raked in lucrative opportunities off their name. The whole thing feels like a tantrum from a petulant child who, like the ex-royals, desperately wanted the attention from a manufactured conflict to make himself feel special after living in his parents’ shadow. Brooklyn and his wife, Nicola Peltz, are now bound to follow Harry and Meghan’s path into international insufferableness, as pests who produce nothing and complain about everything.

For those who haven’t been following this drama, let me catch you up: After months of rumored bad blood, Brooklyn “broke his silence” with the allegation that his parents undermined and sabotaged his relationship with Nicola up until the day of their wedding. He claimed that his mother, Victoria Beckham, who has a luxury fashion line, bailed on making Nicola’s wedding gown at the “eleventh hour” and then hijacked his first dance with Nicola at the reception. The Beckhams were always inhospitable to Nicola, he claimed, with some members even allegedly commenting the night before the wedding that she was “not blood” and “not family.”

A man’s loyalty to his wife is of supreme importance. Once he marries her, she becomes his immediate family. But parents and siblings have the right to object to their union beforehand as part of a rigorous discernment period to ensure that it’s a compatible fit, although it’s ultimately a personal choice. The Beckham bunch are clearly tight-knit; half of their Instagram photos are of each other. They’re also a business, as Brooklyn’s screed notes, and therefore new additions are no doubt subject to scrutiny. Most ordinary people, I think, would assume that comes with the territory of being in a famous family in the limelight.

Frankly, this isn’t a celebrity scandal worth the pages it’s being printed on across mainstream media. It would be one thing if legitimate abuse or neglect were involved. By eight years old, child actress Drew Barrymore was accompanying her mother to nightclubs five nights a week — including at drug-fueled parties with inappropriate dancing at Studio 54 — until she was granted emancipation at age 14. Former Nickelodeon star Jennette McCurdy, author of the memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died, revealed that her mother, who was also her manager, showered her until she was 18 years old and would erupt into hysterics any time she asked to shower by herself. Macaulay and Kieran Culkin cut ties with their father, “Kit” Culkin, after a nasty legal battle over their acting earnings as well as allegations of abuse.

Macaulay said in 2018 on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast: “[He said,] ‘Do good or I’ll hit you.’ He was a bad man. He was abusive, physically and mentally — I can show you all my scars if I wanted to. Everything he tried to do in life, I excelled at before I was 10 years old.”

What has led Brooklyn Beckham to choose estrangement, by considerable contrast, is that his parents aggressively micromanage their kids’ lives, including their romantic ones. It’s invasive and annoying, but this would sound pretty normal to my enormous Irish-Italian family, where being in everybody’s business is our heritage. Such intrusion is the very plot of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and that’s about a blue-collar family. One can only imagine how much more nosiness and meddling there is in the British version of the Kardashians. And from his family’s business pursuits, Brooklyn has immensely benefited.

Brooklyn Beckham would likely be irrelevant if not for his famous footballer dad and Spice Girl mom. Like Harry and Meghan’s various projects after dropping the Crown, Brooklyn has various contracts representing companies that would have zero interest in him if he weren’t a Beckham. His net worth is reportedly $10 million, a lot of which comes from his own ventures like his hot sauce business — but the last name obviously did a lot of the work there.

Even if Brooklyn’s accusations are true, they do not negate the fact that he has personally benefited from nepotism. He would not have his modeling career or his mediocre cooking show if not for the clout and financial powerhouse behind the Beckham name. The very brand that he is condemning is the reason for his fame and cushy lifestyle. Much more gratitude is due to his parents.

There is also some evidence that Brooklyn’s claims may not be credible. According to Vogue, Nicola had been coordinating with the designer Valentino on a custom gown for at least a year before the wedding. How could Victoria have canceled her dress at the “eleventh hour” if Nicola had been flying back and forth to Rome, scheduling fittings, and working on a couture dress for a whole year?

Yes, it’s possible that Victoria and David pulled stunts to spite Nicola, for whatever reason. Victoria might fit the classic devouring-mother archetype, jealously clinging to her son as she realizes she is no longer the most important woman in his life. But being a helicopter parent is not a crime, and it’s not worth severing family ties over. What needs to happen is a healthy airing of grievances in person — not playing telephone through lawyers — and then hopefully reconciliation.