As Brooklyn spends the summer with his new wife and billionaire in-laws, but not his own parents, ALISON BOSHOFF reveals the REAL reason the Beckhams feel they’re being frozen out of their son’s life
- Speculation about the potentially frosty relationship between Victoria Beckham and her new daughter-in-law Nicola Peltz have been swirling around for months
- Son Brooklyn and his wife invited to Beckham’s Paris Fashion Week this month
- Rumours of poor relations fuelled by newlyweds snubbing trip with Beckhams
- ALISON BOSHOFF reveals the real reason Beckhams are feeling a little left out
As olive branches go, it’s very Victoria Beckham. After months of speculation about frosty relations with her son Brooklyn’s new in-laws, he and his wife Nicola have been invited to Victoria’s Paris Fashion Week show at the end of the month.
‘Everyone is invited, including Brooklyn and Nicola,’ I’m told. ‘Although it’s not definite yet that they will come.’
All concerned are hoping the newlyweds will attend and that the families will be reunited — not least because the fall-out between them has caused the Beckhams a great deal of pain.
As first revealed in this paper, an icy silence has descended between Nicola and her mother-in-law Victoria.
Everyone has been invited to the Fashion Week in Paris including the newlyweds (pictured)
Starting from the wedding in April, the pair have pointedly failed to like each other’s posts on social media. They have spent time together only once, on a night out in Italy in July.
Brooklyn and Nicola enjoyed weeks on holiday with the Peltz family on their yacht this summer — and skipped the Beckhams’ yacht holiday completely. They then spent more time with the Peltzes in Florida.
Since then, there has been a volley of accusations, with claims that Victoria hijacked the bride and groom’s wedding dance and that Nicola had no intention of wearing a dress by Victoria as, woundingly, she knew designers who were ‘actually talented’.
These tensions, which came to a head during the wedding, remain high. On one side, you have besotted Brooklyn, who has an enormous ‘Peltz’ tattoo across his chest and keeps adding more inky tributes to his wife — apparently each one makes her weep because she is so in love with him.
On the other, you have the Beckhams, who feel their son has been completely absorbed by his wife’s large, wealthy family.
Nelson Peltz, a feared corporate raider whose firm is the largest shareholder in the Wendy’s burger chain, is said to be bringing Brooklyn even further into the fold by financially backing his forthcoming commercial venture into the hot chilli sauce business.
All concerned are hoping the newlyweds will attend and that the families will be reunited
To Nicola’s delight, aspiring chef Brooklyn defers to Nelson (quite sensibly) for career advice.
She told Tatler this summer: ‘Brooklyn is getting into very exciting things with his shows and also business things and it’s really sweet. I watch him call my dad and say: “What do you think about this?” I love watching him learn from my dad.’
A Beckham source says: ‘The Peltz family can offer him things which they [the Beckhams] cannot in terms of commercial connections. David and Victoria have been deeply upset by how things have played out.
‘They are worried that Nicola is going to hurt Brooklyn. They feel that the relationship is unbalanced. He makes a lot of sacrifices for her but it’s not clear what happens in return. But you know, as Victoria says: “He’s just gaga about that girl.” ’
The former Spice Girl may have risen to fame with the mantra Girl Power, but it seems this is one situation which she has no power to fix — at least not by wading in and opening her mouth.
‘It’s a waiting game,’ says the source. ‘She is doing nothing about it — she would be stupid to even try.’
How different the picture was when Brooklyn and Nicola started dating at the end of 2019.
From the start, David and Victoria thoroughly approved of Nicola, the savvy youngest child of a billionaire family (Nelson is worth £1.3 billion).
The couple have reportedly spent more time with the Peltzes in Florida over the summer on their estate
At the outset, Nicola had said that she wanted her mum Claudia (pictured together) to be her wedding planner
She was a guest of honour at Brooklyn’s 21st birthday party in March 2020, dancing the night away with Victoria, who wrote of Nicola on Instagram: ‘We love you so much!’
Nicola, four years older than Brooklyn, had already found a career while he was struggling to make it as a photographer and model, having already decided against following his father into football. By contrast, Nicola had tasted some success, starring in Transformers: Age Of Extinction, and was a steadier influence than some of his previous romances (his liaison with model Hana Cross was very stormy.)
The couple became engaged in July 2020, just as the first pandemic lockdown in the UK was lifting.
Nicola posed for pictures in a canary yellow Victoria Beckham dress and Victoria penned a gushing welcome on Instagram ‘The MOST exciting news!! We could not be happier. Wishing you so much love and a lifetime of happiness. We all love you both so much x.’
But I’m told by a well-placed friend that the cracks started to appear soon afterwards, when the Beckhams were invited to meet Nelson and Claudia Peltz at their £76 million home in Palm Beach, Florida. In normal circumstances, this would have happened before the engagement — but the pandemic meant that it didn’t.
The source says: ‘When they first went to the Peltz house, the Beckhams sent their security team in advance to sweep the place.
‘It is standard procedure when you are a couple at this level of fame, but it did not go down well with the Peltz family. They have their own security, of course, and naturally it is the best that money can buy, so there was no need for their visitors to do this. It raised eyebrows. The feeling was that the Beckhams were somehow saying that they were more important than the Peltzes. It was a simple mis-step, but a bad start.’
Thoughts then turned to wedding planning.
The Beckhams were interested in having weddings on both sides of the Atlantic, with a celebration at their house in the Cotswolds —as they did for Brooklyn’s 21st — plus one in America.
The Peltzes, as is traditional, wanted to have just one wedding at their immense house in Florida, complete with its own jetty and beach.
Claudia Heffner Peltz, a titanium socialite and former top model, firmly took charge, and made a number of decisions — including that there would just be one wedding. She’s had years of experience hosting mega-budget parties and charity events — a bar mitzvah she threw for her twin sons at the St Regis in New York is said to have cost £2 million.
At the outset, Nicola had said that she wanted her mum to be her wedding planner, recalling in an interview with Wonderland magazine this week: ‘My mom was such a big help in my wedding.’
The newlyweds skipped a holiday with in-laws Victoria and David Beckham (pictured) over the summer
One of the first and biggest questions was who would design the dress. As Nicola has said, Victoria Beckham had offered to do the honours.
Recollections vary about what happened next. Nicola said that it became clear that what she wanted was beyond what her mother-in-law’s atelier was able to deliver. Some other sources think that Nicola was never really serious about taking Victoria up on the offer.
It would be no surprise if Nicola, a full-on fashionista, had had her heart set on the couture experience for this, the biggest dress of her life.
By September 2021, she was visiting Pierpaolo Piccioli at Valentino in Rome with her mother Claudia and her stylist in attendance, being fitted for her dream dress. At this point, there was an assumption by many of Victoria’s friends that one of the bride’s other outfits would be by Victoria, who is known for her tailored trouser suits.
But while Nicola did wear a trouser suit on the eve of her wedding, it was not a Victoria Beckham creation, but one by Dior.
Nor did Victoria get a look in at the post-wedding party, when Nicola opted to wear a Versace mini-dress.
To make matters worse, Nicola spoke in flattering terms about both designers to Vogue magazine, failing to mention at any point in the interview that her future mother-in-law was a successful designer herself.
As for the mother of the bride, Claudia Peltz wore Versace throughout.
Brooklyn and Nicola enjoyed weeks on holiday with the Peltz family on their yacht this summer
The couple became engaged in July 2020, just as the first pandemic lockdown in the UK was lifting
Perhaps no slight was intended, but the publicity felt like rather a slap around the face for Mrs Beckham.
I’m told: ‘This all started because Claudia was in the driving seat over the wedding and it put Victoria into a rage.
‘Victoria is used to people being intimidated by her, she’s been famous for 25 years and is deferred to a lot, but Mrs Peltz didn’t seem to be impressed in the slightest.’
Another apparent source of tension was Victoria’s habit of posting online pictures of herself cosied up to her future daughter-in-law.
Claudia’s view, apparently, was that it was time for this overly clingy and interfering mother to fade into the background and let her girl shine.
In the end, Victoria’s only input into the wedding seems to have been that the guests should be offered a ‘light’ menu option.
The Beckhams also chose their friend, DJ Fat Tony, to provide a set at the wedding, and are thought to have paid for both this and a performance by the singer Marc Anthony, who is also a pal.
In addition, the Beckhams were absent from the top table. It caused some confusion as at an English wedding the top table would include both the bride and groom’s parents — but at this American wedding the Beckhams hosted their own table of friends.
The Beckhams were absent from the top table at the lavish wedding earlier this year, where they instead hosted their own table of friends
‘Victoria would have liked to have been on the top table,’ I’m told.
The day itself went off well enough. Reports suggesting that Victoria stole the first dance from the bride are inaccurate, as are reports that singer Marc Anthony upset Nicola by giving a long speech about Mrs Beckham.
But the damage had been done, with the Beckhams feeling puzzled that they had been seemingly sidelined from the life of their adored eldest son.
There are also suggestions that the Peltz family are rather surprised that Brooklyn hasn’t had more of an education. He dropped out of his university course in photography at the prestigious Parsons School of Design in New York after only a year.
I’m told: ‘A level of mistrust exists which means that each side suspects, wrongly, that the other has been leaking stories in recent weeks.
‘The Beckhams are both really hurt, particularly David. They want to be there for Brooklyn, they always thought he would be a big part of their lives for ever. Now they don’t even speak as often as they would like. It has come as a real shock.
‘The only plus is that problems have brought Victoria and David closer together. They discuss it endlessly. They know that Brooklyn is madly in love with Nicola and you can’t fight that.
‘Nobody can talk any sense into him. He’s spending all his time with her family — it’s all Peltz, Peltz Peltz.’
Indeed, Brooklyn continues to gush over Nicola on Instagram. ‘Words can’t describe how proud I am of you,’ he writes. ‘I love you so much.’
Occasionally, though, he cooks. On August 19 he shared footage of himself making a ‘spicy chicken parm’. His father wrote: ‘When u gonna make us one?’
When indeed?
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