Just when we thought the Beckham family feud had been put on the back burner, up pop Nicola Peltz and Brooklyn Beckham on the cover of the German edition of Glamour magazine.
Inside, they gush about their love for each other, praising her parents for their guidance and wisdom but, tellingly, making no direct mention of his.
When asked how they cope with the spotlight, Brooklyn replied: ‘Ignore the noise. Keep your head down, work hard, be kind.’
Nicola added: ‘Whether it’s with friends, family, or in a relationship – honesty builds trust, closeness, growth. Real connection only happens when you are brave enough to be honest.’
What is clear from the article is that the young couple are obviously no longer taking the attacks on Nicola lying down. This is fightback time.
And who can blame them? For recent developments in the Beckham feud have left me wondering whether Nicola, far from being the villain of the piece, is actually the victim of a row that has left her husband Brooklyn estranged from his once inseparable family.
Like most observers, I had accepted the prevailing narrative – based on invariably anonymous sources – that Nicola was the cause of the dispute.
She is the diva, we are told, who gives off Mean Girl vibes, throws tantrums and has made it her business to tear Brooklyn away from the rest of the Beckham clan by making it impossible for him to see them.
In their interview with Glamour Germany, Nicola Peltz and Brooklyn Beckham gush about their love for each other and praise her parents but make no direct mention of his mother and father
Briefings from the Nicola and Brooklyn camp at the weekend have made Amanda Platell question whether Ms Peltz is actually the villain in the Beckham family dispute
The spat appears to have initially kicked off at Nicola and Brooklyn’s wedding three years ago
But briefings from the Nicola and Brooklyn camp at the weekend have made me question whether I was right to do so.
Let’s begin at the beginning. What seems clear is that everything initially kicked off at Nicola and Brooklyn’s Palm Beach wedding three years ago.
There Brooklyn’s mother, Victoria, had her nose well and truly put out of joint by Nicola’s failure to choose one of her VB frocks for her wedding dress.
It would have been sensational publicity for Posh, but her new daughter-in-law chose instead a custom-made Valentino number.
Now reports have emerged that Victoria upset Nicola at the reception after the designer’s friend, the US singer Marc Anthony – who had offered to perform at the wedding as a gift to the happy couple – sang to her rather than the bride and asked Victoria, not Nicola, to join him on stage, addressing her as ‘the most beautiful girl in the room’.
Such an insensitive move must have cut Nicola to the quick, with one source claiming the new bride ‘felt that Victoria had ruined her wedding’. Indeed, it is said to have left her in tears on her special day and laid the foundations of a rift that only got wider as time went on.
Who would blame a young bride for being upset if her famous mother-in-law, intentionally or not, upstaged her at her own wedding?
Sources close to Victoria, of course, say she would never have done anything to intentionally derail her son’s big day. But the Palm Beach incident proved to be only the first contretemps in what has become a very troubled relationship.
When asked during the Glamour interview how they cope with the spotlight, Brooklyn replied: ‘Ignore the noise. Keep your head down, work hard, be kind’
Singer Marc Anthony, who performed at the wedding, with David and Victoria Beckham
The family have made millions from Netflix shows such as David’s 2023 docuseries ‘Beckham’
The Nicola and Brooklyn camp has recently been briefing about another contributory factor in the enduring split: Brooklyn’s failure to turn up to any of his father’s 50th birthday celebrations last month.
Sources claim that David Beckham’s oldest son sent a text message to his father to arrange to meet privately, just the two of them, over a cup of coffee in a bid to sort things out. But his olive branch was apparently ‘rebuffed’. What ‘rebuffed’ means remains unclear.
The relationship between the two camps has become the focus of an unending series of briefings and counter briefings.
The Beckham camp appears united against Nicola, the thrust of their argument being that she’s a spoilt brat who’s prone to tantrums.
The other side insists Nicola is the victim of the Beckhams’ control freakery as they make increasingly desperate attempts to save their ‘brand’ as the perfect family.
That’s the image, after all, that has helped them make millions from Netflix shows such as David’s four-part, 2023 docuseries ‘Beckham’ and Victoria’s upcoming show about her fashion and beauty empire.
Nicola’s camp has briefed US magazines that the Beckhams are ‘more concerned with keeping up appearances – and maintaining the family brand – than making things up with their boy’.
It has described the Beckhams’s attempts to reach out to Brooklyn as ‘performative’ – ie moves designed to make them look good rather than sincere attempts to effect a reconciliation.
US website TMZ quoted sources ‘familiar with the young couple’ as saying they have ‘made themselves available for months and months to discuss the ongoing drama’ but that David and Victoria refuse to talk to their son with Nicola present ‘because she always talks back to them and stands up for Brooklyn’.
Nicola’s people add that she is merely giving her husband the support he needs in such circumstances, but is being portrayed ‘cruelly’ for doing so and that ‘naturally it’s always the woman who gets the blame’.
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Some even suggest she is trying to protect Brooklyn from the deep dysfunction in his own supposedly ideal family.
All of which is dismissed as total nonsense by the Beckham camp. It points out that, in February last year, Victoria flew to LA to support Nicola on the red carpet at the launch of her movie Lola, even dressing her in one of her bespoke VB outfits (though, it has to be said, this gained Victoria very welcome worldwide publicity).
Who can tell who’s right and who’s wrong?
We don’t really know much about Nicola, beyond the bare facts that she’s the daughter of a billionaire, an aspiring actress and she entered into a supposedly fairytale marriage with the scion of the rich and famous Beckham family.
But she has been cast as the guilty party in this ongoing psychodrama ever since and I, for one, am starting to feel some sympathy for her.
After all, it can’t be easy having controlling, self-publicising Victoria as your mother-in-law – a woman who seems to want little more than to dress you in her frocks all the time.
Why shouldn’t Nicola wear a glorious gown from Valentino’s couture collection on her wedding day rather than a dress from her mother-in-law’s rather less prestigious VB brand?
As the world’s gossips pour scorn on Nicola and praise the saintly Victoria, let’s not forget that the latter is something of an iron lady.
After her husband’s reported fling with his personal assistant Rebecca Loos was splashed all over the papers in 2004, instead of nursing her humiliation in private, Victoria gathered up her two young children, Romeo and Brooklyn, and organised a show of family unity.
Along with David, they posed for the paparazzi on the slopes of a Swiss ski resort to prove they were untouchable, invincible.
It seems to me the truth is that no one is allowed to stand in the way of the Beckham family brand, not an alleged mistress, not even her own son and his new wife.