Playing unfair games is nothing new for David and Victoria Beckham. According to one author, the power couple became so estranged that they told the media negative stories about each other.
The “media war” began eight years ago when allegations emerged that David had had an affair with his personal assistant Rebecca Loos.
The relationship between the Beckhams subsequently deteriorated to the point where it became merely a “distant business relationship,” said British author Tom Bower before the book’s publication The Beckham House.
One particular row between the couple came in 2018 when David appeared on The Sunday Project and described their marriage as “hard work”. Victoria had been given no warning of what would be discussed in the interview and Bower said she was “stunned” when she saw it.
“It was as if an atomic bomb had exploded,” said Bower The mirror.
“Her husband’s infidelity confused her. His honesty had thwarted her efforts to conjure up an image of happy families. Why, she sobbed, should David embarrass her?
“And worse still, why couldn’t he understand the consequences of his own stupidity? Why, she lamented, had he become the enemy of her ambition? Without answers, she fled for two days to a spa hotel in Baden-Baden.”
The author claims that Victoria’s press agent then leaked the story to a reporter that the former Spice Girl was full of “anger and accusations” after learning what her husband had said in the interview.
She was then seen in Australia with tears in her eyes.
When asked about the secret to the success of his relationship, David told The Project: “When you’re married as long as we have, it’s always hard work. It gets a little more complicated.”
David, speaking to project facilitator Lisa Wilkinson, said the focus was on their children.
“I think marriage is always about hard work,” he replied.
“You know your kids – they want your time and they deserve your time, and we are hardworking and believe that this is the right way to raise our kids, to prove and show them that you actually have to work hard to be successful.”
Of the media war between the couple, Bower wrote: “The bitterness between the Beckhams is reflected in the fact that the two PR people began to compete with each other rather than collaborate in promoting their own client. Both fed their favorite tabloid journalists negative stories about the other side.”
Another such story involved a family vacation during which Victoria allegedly told her children, “Daddy is not a cheater.”
The couple’s relationship became even more strained in 2016, when Victoria lived in London with the children and simultaneously built her fashion label while David worked in Miami.
“During London Fashion Week that year, she asked Beckham to return to London for dinner… By the end of the festivities, she must have wished he had stayed in America. “Some whispered that the two had previously been involved in a vulgar argument.”
Bower wrote that David was seen flying to New York that same evening.
The following year there was more excitement, this time at Glastonbury, when David and his entourage arrived a day early and partied with models until 5am.
“She and her entourage drove in a golf cart through the dingy campers to the VIP area, angry because her husband had not returned her calls,” Bower writes.
“Finally, David appeared. Within seconds they were involved in a heated argument.”
The Beckhams, who have a combined net worth of $778 million, were together for one main reason.
“They stuck together to support the brand (sic),” writes Bower.
The couple also revealed their marital problems in the Netflix docuseries Beckhamwhich follows David’s meteoric rise from working class to global football star. Victoria admitted that at their lowest point they were “at odds” while David said: “I don’t know how we got through that.”