On Wednesday, David and Victoria Beckham defied widely reported legal warnings and wished their eldest son, Brooklyn Peltz Beckham, a happy 27th birthday on their Instagram stories.
If you need reminding, back in January, Brooklyn issued an explosive six-part Instagram statement slamming his famous family, firmly stating that he does not want to “reconcile” with them and accusing them of “consistently” disrespecting his wife, Nicola Peltz Beckham. He also lashed out at “Brand Beckham,” stating that his parents value public endorsements above all else, adding: “Family ‘love’ is decided by how much you post on social media, or how quickly you drop everything to show up and pose for a family photo opp, even if it’s at the expense of our professional obligations.” You can read a full breakdown of the entire feud here.
None of the Beckhams have publicly commented on Brooklyn’s statement, but a source later told People that David and Victoria are terrified of losing their son, and that they “would take him back in a minute.” Notably, prior to Brooklyn’s statement, it was reported that Brooklyn had sent a legal letter to his parents last summer “requesting that any correspondence go through lawyers, as an attempt to try and make amends privately instead of publicly.” When they kept liking his social media posts, he blocked his whole family on Instagram.
Despite this, David, Victoria, and Brooklyn’s two younger brothers, Romeo and Cruz, each acknowledged Brooklyn’s birthday on their Instagram stories yesterday. David shared a cute throwback photo of himself and Victoria with Brooklyn in a swimming pool when he was a toddler. He wrote: “27 today 🥺 Happy Birthday Bust 🤍 We love you x.” The soccer star followed up with another photo of just himself and Brooklyn as a child, writing: “Happy Birthday Bust 🩷 Love you x.”
Meanwhile, Victoria shared the same throwback photo in the pool and wrote: “Happy birthday Brooklyn, we love you so much ❤️” Under a black and white photo of just her and Brooklyn as a toddler, Victoria added: “Happy 27th birthday Brooklyn, I love you so much ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️”
Romeo marked the occasion by sharing a throwback photo of him and Brooklyn to his story without a caption, and Cruz shared a photo of Brooklyn holding him when he was a baby and simply wrote: “i love you.”
Arguably as expected, Brooklyn did not publicly acknowledge any of these posts. However, a source told Entertainment Tonight that he and Nicola found them “performative.” The insider said: “Brooklyn and Nicola are disheartened they chose to make public Instagram posts for his birthday. These are the exact type of performative public actions that Brooklyn has been trying to put an end to, to no avail.”
The source went on to reiterate: “Last summer, they issued a legal letter to his parents requesting that any correspondence go through lawyers.”
However, some have found these source quotes pretty ironic after they saw Nicola’s birthday tribute to her husband, which came in the form of a video that she shared to her Instagram page. In the post, Nicola is filming Brooklyn as he reacts to a box of pink-iced donuts that spell out “Happy Birthday Brooklyn.”
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Brooklyn takes a bite out of one of them, and Nicola tells him: “You have to make a wish,” in reference to the lit candles. As he quickly tries to finish his mouthful of food, Nicola adds: “Happy birthday, I love you.”
Looking directly at the camera, Brooklyn says: “I love you,” and blows a kiss. As he gears up to blow out his candles, Nicola adds: “I hope your wishes come true,” and after he does, she exclaims: “Yayyyy!”
“Aww, this is so sweet,” Brooklyn says in response to the donuts and “BPB” balloons, with gifts that are wrapped in paper branded with his Cloud23 hot sauce logo also in shot.
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“happy birthday baby 🎂🩷 i hope all your dreams and wishes come true! you light up every room you walk into and anyone who knows you loves you 🥹 you’re the most special human and i love being your wife. i love you i love you i love you,” Nicola captioned the video, with Brooklyn commenting underneath it: “My baby girl xxx”
Nicola also shared a photo of herself and Brooklyn standing in front of the balloons to her Instagram story.
And many of their followers had a lot to say off the back of the ET quote, with one commenting on the video: “Looks performative to me… why are we watching this when you live together? Why not keep this private like he wants to? We don’t need this.”
“How is this not performative action,” somebody else asked. One more wrote: “For someone that says the Beckhams do staged posts online for ‘the brand’, this post feels very fake and staged. The post on Nicola’s story about the new brand for the cooking sauces, and then the filming past the wrapped presents in the branded paper on this video. Plus all the matching pink items from the pink jumper he’s wearing to the pink donuts. It doesn’t feel authentic at all. Feels more like a campaign or an ad for something.”
Other social media users had a similar response under ET Online’s Instagram post about the source quotes. One commented: “It’s ironic that Nicola posted a very performative birthday post for him.” Another asked: “So Nicola can wish him happy birthday on social media, but when his parents do the exact thing it’s performative 🙄🙄”
Somebody else wrote: “There is NOTHING performative about a parent wishing their baby a happy birthday.” While one more concluded: “At this point if they didn’t say anything for his birthday it would also be an issue. Wishing their son happy birthday and saying I love you is totally normal.”
Brooklyn’s birthday discourse comes after he and Nicola came under fire for sharing a very PDA-heavy selfie in honor of Valentine’s Day last month — you can read all about that here.
