Vegan shoes, private jet pollution, and a costly cooking show. Brooklyn
Beckham has grown up in the spotlight, and a lot of people have spoken up about him.
In 2015, Brooklyn Beckham posed for the cover of Miss Vogue and
told the magazine that he wanted to study photography in college. The following year,
the luxury label Burberry hired him as the photographer for an ad campaign. Beckham was
just 16, and some experienced photographers couldn't believe that he'd been handed a gig
that big. In an interview with The Guardian, professional photographer Chris Floyd said,
"It's sheer nepotism."
But a Burberry exec argued that Beckham's Instagram photography
proved that he was capable enough for the job.
"All those people that bleated saying 'He got that because of – oh,
they're really good aren't they?'"
Beckham's godfather, Elton John, also weighed in, explaining to Metro,
"It's like when you do a runway show and you send all the great stuff down
that doesn't make it to the shops but it gets in the papers — it's the publicity."
Beckham told Sky News that his experience posing in front of the camera had helped
him hone his photography skills, as it allowed him to watch established pros in
action. He even released his own photography book, "What I See," in 2017. But some Twitter
critics were unimpressed by his blurry images and captions, one of which read,
"Elephants in Kenya. So hard to photograph, but incredible to see."
As for his human subjects, they didn't always seem to respect
his artistic process. Brooklyn told W magazine,
"Sometimes I just approach [strangers] and don't
even ask and take their photo so I get a cool reaction, like if they're mad at me."
In 2018, Brooklyn caused an outcry on Instagram after sharing a photo he snapped during a trip
to Italy. In it he showed a group of Asian people who were either locals
or sightseers enjoying the same sights that he was there to see. Beckham captioned the image,
"No place like Italy innit."
Some of his followers took this to mean that he found the presence of
the people in the picture unwelcome. And if he assumed that they weren't locals,
why was it okay for him to visit the country but not them? The backlash
got so bad that Beckham deleted the image and made his Instagram private.
A year prior, some of his followers had accused him of cultural appropriation. When Beckham got
tattooed for the first time, the design he chose was the profile of a Native American
chief wearing a feather headdress. In a since-deleted post, he revealed that it
was inspired by his dad's similar tattoo. The ink was even done by the same artist, Mark Mahoney.
"Your first tattoo, if you're gonna have one, your first tattoo,
I wanna be there, just to experience it as a dad."
One of Brooklyn's earliest high-profile romances was with former child star Chloë Grace Moretz.
He was first romantically linked to the actor in 2014, and the pair dated
on and off for years. After a long break and a reconciliation in 2017, Moretz told Us Weekly,
"I think we chose each other. [...] It's just one of those things,
you come back and it's like no time spent away from each other at all."
Beckham and Moretz split for good the following year, sometime after Valentine's Day.
By April 2018, Beckham and Lexi Wood were spotted getting cozy,
with ET sharing photos of the two kissing. Not long afterward, Moretz referenced the
Cardi B song "Be Careful" on her Instagram Stories. The track is about infidelity,
so was it potentially meant to be a hint that she suspected Beckham of being unfaithful
during their relationship? We may never know for sure, but Moretz did seem to throw some
shade at her ex when she was asked about him during an August 2018 interview with The Times.
By then, Beckham had already dated and gotten dumped by musician Lexy Panterra,
per ET. After complaining about getting notifications on her phone about what
she called "a certain relationship," Moretz said,
"I'm not a big fan of PDAs in general. I personally
don't want to see people posted all over my phone making out."
In 2017, Brooklyn told W magazine that his mom encouraged him to go to school in New
York to study photography, and he enrolled in Parsons School of Design. He also landed an
internship working alongside Nick Knight, who had once photographed his mother for the cover
of Vogue. But in 2018, Brooklyn dropped out of Parsons after a year. A source told the Mirror,
"It sounds as if he was truly homesick and was feeling lonely out there. He adores his family."
Victoria Beckham was reportedly happy that he returned home.
As far as his dreams of being a professional photographer were concerned, all was not yet
lost. He had scored another internship with the renowned British photographer Rankin, and in 2019,
sources told The Sun that Brooklyn was an enthusiastic study. However, an insider also said,
"Everyone knew Brooklyn's work needed fine tuning but no one knew
his knowledge of the simplest tasks was so off [...] He's lacking in most areas."
A source even cracked a cruel joke about how his only talent
was being able to push the shutter button to at least take a photo.
Brooklyn eventually gave up pursuing photography as a career — and maybe tried to rewrite history
a bit by downplaying its importance in his life. He told Variety in 2022,
"I still have all my film cameras,
but now it's just more of a fun thing to do. They were kind of all hobbies."
In December 2018, Brooklyn debuted his relationship with model Hana Cross. Naturally,
he photographed her and shared the results with his Instagram followers. The consensus seemed
to be that Cross bore a striking resemblance to Victoria Beckham during her Posh years.
But while Brooklyn and his muse made some pretty amazing art together, the spice they brought to
each other's lives wasn't always the good kind. According to The Sun, they were spotted having
a heated argument after watching a Yungblood performance in March 2019, with a source saying,
"Brooklyn had sunk a few beers and ended up getting into a row with Hana."
The following month, the Irish Mirror published photos of the couple looking
distressed as they appeared to shout and argue inside a car.
In yet another emotionally charged moment, they reportedly had a blow-out
fight at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2019. They were spotted yelling at
each other while dining outdoors at the Hotel Martinez. A source told The Sun,
"Hana confronted Brooklyn and lashed out, and security waded in."
All of this explosive behavior reportedly made it difficult for Victoria and David
Beckham to support their son's relationship. An insider shared,
"They're hoping this is just a phase, and he will soon focus entirely on his
photography career which is now really beginning to flourish."
Well, at least Brooklyn's parents got part
of their wish when he and Cross parted ways in September 2019.
After his relationship with Hana Cross ended, Brooklyn was spotted with his
ex Lexy Panterra. But soon, he found himself desperately smitten with Nicola Peltz. Beckham
had actually met her before at Coachella, but Nicola told Wonderland of their 2017 encounter,
"We really didn't get along. He had a girlfriend and I had a boyfriend."
While The Sun reported that he'd been spotted with Hailey Bieber at that year's festival,
the Daily Mail published photos of Beckham posing with Panterra.
When fate brought Nicola and Beckham back together in 2019,
they fell for each other fast. The following year, they spent the beginning of the pandemic
together at the Palm Beach estate of Nicola's billionaire dad, Nelson Peltz, and her mom,
Claudia Heffner, per Bustle. After getting a small taste of domestic bliss with Nicola,
Beckham decided that he wanted so much more of it that he proposed in July 2020.
In an interview with The U.S. Sun, Panterra weighed in on her ex's marriage plans, saying,
"Honestly, Brooklyn is not ready for that. He is very young and way too
immature. [...] He has a new chick every month."
She also revealed that nothing romantic happened between her
and Beckham at Coachella in 2017 but confirmed that she and Beckham
had briefly reconnected before he started dating Nicola. She added:
"We are not together anymore because of his immature ways and him not being a good friend."
After they went Instagram official, Brooklyn and Nicola began regularly sharing photos of
themselves together on the social media platform. There were kisses and intimate selfies galore,
but a September 2020 photo of Beckham grabbing Peltz's neck didn't sit well with some. Peltz
was laughing in the image, which the "Bates Motel" actor posted on her own Instagram account.
But the Iranian & Kurdish Women's Rights Organization, a nonprofit that helps Afghan,
North African, and Middle Eastern girls and women who are victims of domestic
violence or at risk of being victimized in the U.K., didn't view the playful pic as a
laughing matter. The charity's founder, Diana Nammi shared, per the Daily Mail,
"Even if it's a joke it is disgusting in my opinion."
The image struck a nerve with Nammi because many
female victims of honor-based violence are killed by strangulation, adding,
"I think this is sending a very wrong message."
But Peltz ignored Nammi's call to delete the picture. The following month,
Peltz celebrated one year of dating Beckham by letting everyone know what a great guy he is. She
captioned two Instagram photos of herself and her boyfriend taking a bath together with the words,
"You have the most beautiful heart I've ever known and anyone in your life is lucky to be in it."
The images showed a more tender side of Beckham; in one of them,
he kissed Peltz on the forehead while gently cradling her neck.
Life was looking pretty good for Brooklyn in September 2021; he was engaged to a gorgeous
heiress and got to attend the Met Gala with her. However, the exclusive event's livestream host for
Vogue, "Nope" star Keke Palmer, didn't seem to know who he was. And when Palmer asked Beckham
where he was from, he missed the opportunity to show her his "Made in England" tattoo.
"Where are you from?"
"I'm from London."
"Oh, from London."
Little did Palmer know that she'd met a culinary star in the making. The following month,
Beckham surprised "Today" viewers by appearing in a cooking segment.
He chose to make a breakfast sandwich — and got brutally roasted on Twitter
for leaving the bread untoasted, among other things. One user wrote,
"Was this meant to be a joke?"
But the tweet heat didn't keep Beckham out of the kitchen, and he found himself spinning on
the Twit spit again when TikToker Daniel Mac spotted him driving his $1.2 million
McLaren P1 sportscar in August 2022. Mac filmed himself as he said to Beckham,
"Hey, man! What do you do for a living? Your car's awesome!"
"Oh my God, I know you!"
"Yeah, Daniel Mac, you've seen it?"
"What's up man?"
"What's up bro?"
"I'm a chef."
"You're a chef?"
"Yeah." "Really?"
In response to the video, one commenter joked that Beckham was actually able to afford the vehicle
because he's a "C.H.E.F – Child (of) Handsome Ex-Footballer." Beckham later admitted to Bustle,
"I'm not a professional chef — at all. I've never said that. I never would say that."
Brooklyn didn't have to become a professional chef to land his own Facebook Watch cooking show,
"Cookin' with Brooklyn." Instead, he invited some of his famous friends from the culinary
world to teach him their skills as he filmed the series in 2021. Insiders
told the New York Post that the large production team Beckham hired to help
him with the series was more like one you'd find working on a television show,
and it reportedly cost around $100,000 per episode to produce. One source said,
"Apparently the guy has to be shown really super basic things and has a 'cheat sheet'
of expressions from whisk to par-boil, several illustrated with pictures."
But what Beckham lacked in ability, he made up for in enthusiasm and determination.
He'd discovered his passion for filming cooking videos during the pandemic, recalling to Vogue,
"Nicola started videoing me, and I started posting it, and people started to really like it."
After he launched his show, he kept filming shorter videos for Instagram — even though
they provided foodies with plenty of fodder to roast his culinary skills with,
such as his decision to cook while wearing his dog in a sling. He's also been criticized for
using expensive ingredients in his recipes. In response to Beckham's demonstration of
how he generously sprinkles shaved truffle on a tagliatelle pasta dish, someone wrote,
"I wish I could afford the idea of 'no such thing as too much truffle.'"
In his role as a Together Band ambassador, Brooklyn provided a
platform for young climate activists to share their urgent messages about how climate change
is harming the planet. In a September 2020 video profiling one such activist,
Beckham revealed that he attended his first climate march in 2019. Like many young people,
he's clearly concerned about climate change. He's also in the unique position
to contribute more to global warming than a vast majority of most people his age.
Per The Mirror, this is what he did when he used a private plane during the holidays in
December 2020. When a passenger chooses to fly on a private jet, they're causing up to 14%
percent more carbon pollution than a commercial passenger, according to Transport & Environment.
When GQ talked to Beckham about his environmentalism in March 2021,
he didn't mention his carbon footprint and focused on water conservation instead — he
was, after all, promoting Pepe Jeans' Wiser Future collection,
which uses less water during production than your average denim clothing. He said,
"I do the basics, like not letting the water run when I brush my teeth,
measure out my water for tea, and I do not let the water run when I shower."
In addition to wearing Pepe Jeans, Beckham told Vogue that he borrows his father-in-law's jeans,
so that's another way to cut down on denim water waste, right?
In November 2021, Brooklyn got to put the ol' modeling skills to use
when the popular clothing company Superdry offered him a 1 million
pound contract to be one of its brand ambassadors. A source told The Sun.
"This is a huge opportunity for Brooklyn and will cement
him as a real name in the men's fashion world."
But it didn't take long for his role to come under scrutiny. In January 2022, Beckham shared
an Instagram photo of himself rocking a pair of Superdry's vegan sneakers. Per the Daily Mail,
a number of his followers responded to the post by pointing out that Beckham has confessed to
being a big meat eater. Just days earlier, he had revealed that he particularly loves a
juicy steak in one of his videos, so there was arguably a conflict of interest here.
"I love making it probably just as much as I enjoy eating it."
Eight months after Beckham got the Superdry job, the company announced
that it was parting ways with the red meat enthusiast. A rep for the brand said,
"We always review the ambassadors who feature in
our campaigns and decided to work with a different range of talent."
But someone out there had faith in Beckham's ability to cook up something else just as big;
in March 2022, he signed with the Hollywood talent agency CAA.
Brooklyn and Nicola's April 2022 wedding at the Palm Beach home of Peltz's parents was the talk
of the tabloids long after it was over, and it wasn't because the couple's vows were just
that moving. In August 2022, sources told Page Six that there was a lot of bad blood between
Victoria Beckham and Peltz because Posh Spice was being iced out of helping plan the wedding.
In an interview with Grazia, Peltz denied that any family feuding had been going on
and shared a theory about the source of the rumors to the contrary. She explained
that she had wanted to wear one of her mother-in-law's designs down the aisle,
but Victoria was unable to help her make this happen, adding,
"A few days went by and I didn't hear anything.
Victoria called my mom and said her atelier couldn't make it."
So, Valentino it was.
David Beckham was reportedly livid over Peltz talking to the press about
the dress drama and confronted his son about it. A source told the Daily Mail.
"I don't think David has ever lost his temper with Brooklyn or had cause to talk to him harshly,
but that has now finally happened. He had it out with him and told him:
'We don't do this in our family — and you know that we don't do this in our family.'"
"Whatever makes you happy, just do that, and,
you know, it took me a few years to find out what I love, but I found it."
Brooklyn doesn't feel any pressure to find his true calling. He told Bustle,
"It's OK to be 25, 26, or even 30 and not know what you're doing yet. You know what I mean?"
This is actually something his mom has some experience with. While performing with the
Spice Girls made Victoria Beckham a global superstar, it wasn't until she launched her
clothing line that she felt a real sense of accomplishment. She told Vogue in 2012,
"I worked very hard, but it took a long time for me to find something to say,
'Oh, I'm not bad at this.' And I've found that with what I'm doing now."
Posh had to ignore the haters and do her thing,
and it seems that Brooklyn is doing the same. He told BuzzFeed,
"I think people are always going to say rubbish, I've kind of gotten to that point
where I'm going to get it forever and that's totally fine. [...] I'm happy,
and working hard, and trying to do good things."
He also has some pretty powerful people rooting for him, and we're not just talking
about his family; Gordon Ramsay defended Brooklyn's cooking career to the Daily Mail,
saying that he was pleased to see him pursuing his passion. So, for a nepo baby like Brooklyn,
the world really is his oyster, and the wannabe chef can keep dressing it
in different ways until he finds the one that tastes just right.