David and Victoria Beckham Break Silence on Affair Allegations in Documentary

This morning, Netflix dropped its four-part docuseries Beckham, about the life and times of British footballer and pop-culture icon David Beckham. Directed by Fisher Stevens, the docuseries primarily explores Beckham’s time on the pitch playing for England (and losing in the World Cup), Manchester United, and Real Madrid. Rather puzzlingly, the elements that transformed Beckham into a global superstar off-field, like his modeling career or the film Bend It Like Beckham, are largely ignored. It’s essentially his The Last Dance — an athlete-sanctioned docuseries that delves only into the things the celebrity subject wishes to — with a lot less tea.

There are a few minor exceptions, thankfully, including his wife Victoria’s jealousy over Beckham posing with Jennifer Lopez and Beyoncé while she was pregnant with their second child (“Let me tell you what Posh would say. Posh was pissed off!” Victoria quite hilariously exclaims in the doc), as well as the couple reflecting on the 2004 U.K. tabloid reports that Beckham had engaged in affairs with his former assistant, Rebecca Loos, and model Sarah Marbeck around the time he was transferred to the Spanish club Real Madrid. Beckham’s denied the allegations, and doesn’t cop to them here, instead painting himself and Victoria as victims of media rapaciousness. It marks the first time that the couple’s publicly addressed the affair reports in years.

“Um … There was some horrible stories that were difficult to, um, deal with. It was the first time that me and Victoria had been put under that kind of pressure in our marriage,” Beckham says of the affair reports in the docuseries. “When I first moved to Spain, it was difficult because I’d been part of a club and a family for my whole career, from the age of 15 until I was 27 years old. I get sold overnight. The next minute, I’m in a city, I don’t speak the language, but more importantly, I didn’t have my family.”

It’s Victoria’s take on that time, however, that proves more interesting and insightful.

“It was the hardest period for us, because it felt like the world was against us. And here’s the thing: We were against each other, if I’m being completely honest,” she says. “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 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,” she adds.

When Beckham is asked by Stevens how the couple survived the affair reports, Beckham replies, “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know how we got through it, in all honesty. 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.”

From Rolling Stone US.