How Victoria Beckham’s 2007 Coming To America documentary compares to her polished appearance on David’s Netflix show – going from LA Galaxy WAG to Soho Farmhouse chic!
- Read more: The life and times of David Beckham: Footballer on becoming public enemy No 1 after ’98 World Cup, Rebecca Loos and questionable fashion choices
Victoria Beckham looked on top of the world this week as she celebrated the release of her husband’s new Netflix documentary in London on Tuesday evening.
The couple were joined by their kids – Brooklyn, 24, Romeo, 21, Cruz, 18, and Harper, 12 – as they all headed to The Twenty Two hotel for a glitzy afterparty.
The documentary BECKHAM, released at 8am this morning, is a stylish affair, a visual love letter to David’s footballing career and a glimpse into the gilded life – pinballing between Miami, London and the Cotswolds – the couple now enjoy.
The documentary is filmed for the most part in their beautiful rural home, which does a good impression of upmarket country retreat Soho Farmhouse.
Victoria makes a relatively brief appearance – and when she does, she looks every inch the global fashion designer she’s worked tirelessly to become – sporting her brunette locks flowing, or loosely pinned back, and donning low-key looks including a crisp white shirt, or a black tee and jeans.
The polished docu-series comes just days after Paris Fashion Week, where Mrs Beckham was feted for her latest couture show.
Indeed, PR experts this week suggested that the new Netflix documentary could propel Brand Beckham to even dizzier heights, putting them on a par with the Clooneys and the Obamas.
Roll back the decades to the last time Mrs Beckham appeared in a documentary about the family’s life though, and it was a very different offering.
A glimpse back at Victoria Beckham’s 2007 NBC reality TV Coming to America documents her move to LA, ahead of David joining LA Galaxy – the frothy hour-long show, still available on YouTube sees a very different Victoria
In 2007, after David signed for LA Galaxy – decamping from Madrid to California to play in the MLS league, Victoria agreed to star in an hour-long NBC special about moving to the US as a ‘soccer wife’.
Originally planned as a six part series, NBC eventually condensed it into a one-off special, although the rest of the show aired on a smaller TV channel, and is still available to watch on YouTube.
One US critic at the time didn’t hold back when reviewing it, describing the loosely scripted show as: ‘An orgy of self-indulgence so out of whack with reality that you’ll sit there slack-jawed at the gall of these people who think we’re that stupid.’
But it may have been that the American audience didn’t quite get Posh’s humour, much of the show involved her poking fun at her own image.
In their stylish Cotswolds home, Victoria Beckham makes a low-key appearance in the new Netflix documentary, speaking for the first time of the pain she suffered in the aftermath of her husband David’s alleged affair with Rebecca Loos
In one scene in Coming to America, Victoria Beckham confronts blogger Perez Hilton about comments he’d made about her, including calling her ‘a robot with big boobs’
In the scene Posh stands up and asks the blogger: ‘They’re not that big, are they?’
In one scene, she was seen buying a blow-up doll in a sex shop – before putting a blonde wig and trademark black dress on it to make it look like the Spice Girl, a perfect decoy when you want to distract the paparazzi.
And challenging then king of gossip Perez Hilton in an internet cafe about him calling her a ‘robot with big boobs’ saw her standing over him saying: ‘They’re not even that big’.
She also refused to eat a cookie he’d bought for her, on the grounds that she couldn’t ‘be seen’ eating in public.
In another scene, she throws the first pitch at an LA Dodgers game, remarking: ‘Oh no, my trainers are going to get dirty.’
The reality show was supposed to air for six episodes on NBC but was eventually edited down to a one-hour special, which attracted mixed reviews
The show aimed to debunk myths about Victoria Beckham, including that she never smiled. Husband David appeared fleetingly in the show
In one scene, in an attempt to throw off the paparazzi, Victoria buys a blow-up doll in a sex shop, takes it home and has her hairdresser cut it a blonde wig to resemble her own hair
It’s all a million miles from Victoria’s appearance in Beckham, unveiled today.
The candid Netflix documentary will turn the pair into one of the most iconic couples in the world as they finally tell their truth about some of the last three decades most talked about moments, PR experts have said.
The four-part series, which was released on the streaming platform this morning, could move them into an elite bracket, alongside the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Obamas and George and Amal Clooney, of being among the most recognisable power couples in the world, it is claimed.
There are suggestions that Posh and Becks, as they have been known over the years, have successfully relaunched ‘Brand Beckham’ with the series, and it could finally net David a knighthood.
The documentary charts how David and Victoria’s relationship quickly progressed into ‘Posh and Becks’ and tabloid gold, and the impact it had on his performances on the pitch and the relationship with his manager.
In the series the couple too speak publicly for the first time about David’s alleged affair with personal assistant Rebecca Loos.
Another scene shows Victoria worrying she’ll get her trainers dirty as she throws the first pitch at the Los Angeles Dodgers vs New York Mets game in June 2007
Almost 20 years after it was claimed he and the personal assistant had become close while he was playing in Spain for Real Madrid, Mrs Beckham revealed that the months afterwards were the ‘hardest’ of her life and that she no longer felt like the couple ‘had each other’.
Meanwhile, Beckham admitted he still doesn’t know how they got through the 2003 crisis but he and his former Spice Girl wife knew they had to ‘fight for their family’, and said they felt like they were ‘drowning’ when their high-profile marriage was in the headlines for months.
The former England captain also told how he ‘felt physically sick every day’ as he and Mrs Beckham faced a battle to save their marriage.
Almost 20 years after it was claimed he and Rebecca had become close while he was playing in Spain, Victoria revealed that the months afterwards were the ‘hardest’ of her life
Victoria Beckham has spoken for the first time of the pain she suffered in the aftermath of the claims about her husband David’s alleged affair with Rebecca Loos
In a searingly honest interview in the fourth and final episode, Mrs Beckham, 49, appeared to fight back tears as she was asked if it was the hardest time in their marriage. ‘100 per cent,’ she confessed. ‘It was the hardest period for us. Because it felt like the world was against us.
‘Here’s the thing, we were against each other, if I’m being completely honest. Up until Madrid sometimes it felt like us against everybody else but we were together, we were connected, we had each other. But when we were in Spain, it didn’t really feel like we had each other either. And that’s sad. I can’t even begin to tell you how hard it was. And how it affected me.’
Beckham, 48, stunned the world when his alleged relationship with Ms Loos were revealed in the now defunct News Of The World newspaper. At the time Mrs Beckham had decided to remain in the UK so that her young sons Brooklyn and Romeo could stay in their schools. The decision left Beckham lonely, and he admits that he struggled.
He said: ‘When I first moved to Spain it was difficult because I had been part of a club and a family for my whole career, from the age of 15 to when I was 27. I get sold overnight, the next minute I’m in a city, I don’t speak the language. More importantly, I didn’t have my family.
Ms Loos, 45, is now living in the Norwegian wilderness and spends her time eating healthily and practising yoga
‘Every time that we woke up we felt there was something else… we both felt at the time that we were not losing each other but drowning.’
Asked how their marriage survived, Beckham told how he feared playing football while his wife struggled to find a way through their crisis.
Shaking his head, he said: ‘I don’t know how we got through it, in all honestly. Victoria is everything to me, to see her hurt was incredibly difficult, but we’re fighters and at that time we needed to fight for each other, we needed to fight for our family.
‘And what we had was worth fighting for. There were some days that I would wake up and think, ‘How am I going to go to work? How am I going to walk on to that training pitch? How am I going to look as if nothing’s wrong?’ I felt physically sick every day when I opened my eyes, ‘How am I going to do this?’
The crisis prompted Mrs Beckham to relocate to Madrid, where they bought a £3million home which she says she decorated herself. She later went on to have the couple’s third son, Cruz, now 18, in the Spanish capital.
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