Behind The Posh Facade
Tom Bower’s latest celebrity takedown “The House of Beckham” arrives gaudily gift-wrapped as a sordid exposé promising to fillet Brand Beckham down to the bone. Brimming with eye-popping revelations about bitter backstabbing, infidelity, and corporate intrigue, the marketing juggernaut has relentlessly hyped this as the definitive insider account that will reduce the Posh and Becks mystique to a smoldering rubble heap for good.
But does Bower—that pit bull of the publishing world—deliver the fatal kiss-off blow as his rep would suggest? Or is the veteran biographer’s approach more akin to an overzealous referee recklessly showing two red cards before the match has barely kicked off? This review tackles whether “The House of Beckham” ultimately scores as a lurid gossip-rag pageturner or gets boxed in by its own hype.
Golden Balls’ House of Ill Repute?
From the shocking opening salvos, it’s clear Bower is taking no prisoners in his bare-knuckled assault on the squeaky-clean Posh ‘n Becks facade. We’re plunged head-first into an unsparing account of David’s alleged dalliances with a “dizzying array” of pneumatic lovelies over the years, from that career-defining Rebecca Loos torrid-off to panting hook-ups with lingerie models and high-end escorts.
Bower wields these explosive claims of Beckham’s “liaisons” like a flamethrower, reveling in every reproachfully raised eyebrow over the fallen idol’s shredded virtue. We’re breathlessly whisked from the Barcelona team dressing rooms to private party “Rabbit Holes” as Golden Balls surrenders to ungovernable appetites behind his wife’s back. Bower appears to take prurient delight in detailing David’s supposed philandering down to the most intimate textual minutiae.
Harsh Spotlight on Brand-Building Follies
But salacious cheating allegations are just an opening salvo. From there Bower trains his sights on the very machinery of celebrity image management itself, forensically dismantling the Beckhams’ massive publicity apparatus with all the zeal of an anti-corruption crusader. Their publicists and hangers-on are portrayed as a veritable Spanish Armada of opportunists, continually papering over the union’s fractures and fueling a self-serving myth of domestic bliss. Posh and her “ginger assassin” minder Caroline McAteer in particular are depicted as the Energizer Bunnies of PR obfuscators, churning out countess implausible denials and showy “proof of life” photo ops amidst each tabloid firestorm.
Bower positions the Beckhams’ frantic rebranding campaigns – Victoria’s “quest” for credibility as a respected fashion designer and David’s tortured journey from golden-boy idol to entitled narcissist—as the key subplots powering each episode of this showbiz potboiler. We’re taken along for the painfully cringeworthy ride as Posh gamely pivots from her ill-starred solo pop reinventions under Simon Fuller’s marketing lab to her ongoing struggle to be taken seriously in the high-stakes Air Force One of couture. Even Beckham endures a series of spirit-crushing professional humiliations, seeing his captaincy snatched away by joyless disciplinarian managers before winding up a washed-up Real Madrid lame duck with his aura of invincibility shot to pieces. At times readers may find themselves squirming in vicarious embarrassment as Bower renders their desperate celebrity rehab gambits in bracingly unsparing detail.
No Punches Pulled, For Better…
Indeed, the biographer seems to take a perverse glee in gleefully puncturing the aura surrounding his subjects at nearly every turn. The Beckhams’ widely-publicized philanthropic initiatives and activist endeavors are just as ruthlessly dissected, with Bower casting a jaundiced eye on globe-trotting UNICEF publicity tours and charitable “passion projects” that reek more of public branding strategy than human empathy. Anecdotes are recounted in which a notoriously “stingy” Beckham allegedly nitpicks UNICEF over reimbursing him for airfare and other costs, while Posh is portrayed as having to be continually prodded to open her own purse strings for various good causes.
At a certain point, readers may begin to feel that Bower’s takedown artilleryhas become a bit of an indiscriminate blastnamic, demolishing each and every last scintilla of Posh and Becks’ crafted saintly images. Almost no attempt at selfless outreach, no matter how ostensibly benign,
is spared his furiously swinging wrecking ball of disillusionment. One can’t help wondering if there are any Beckham philanthropic initiatives or personal foibles the author wouldn’t grinningly hold up for ritualistic mockery.
… Or Worse
Which raises the issue of fairness. Because while he undeniably marshals an impressively vast research arsenal of insider sources and exhaustive fact-finding, Bower’s prosecutorial zeal can veer into overkill at times, facially damning even relatively minor peccadilloes as heinous sins against decency. Did David’s alleged “cheapskate” reluctance to pick up the tab for a team dinner with his LA Galaxy underlings really represent some grave moral failing, or was it simply an overpaid star being penny-pinching? Similarly, one wonders if Victoria’s various publicity-courting stunts and wardrobe dysfunctions are quite as psychologically deranged as Bower suggests or just the normal eccentricities of an out-of-touch rich celebrity.
Indeed, at a certain point, the breathless, panting tone of perpetual outrage can begin to feel like an authorial tic—the book’s internal engine propelling it forward at the expense of perspective or nuance. Nearly every quote from peripheral sources describing some fresh offense against common decency is delivered with the same level of frothing hysteria. By the closing chapters, some readers may develop a sort of wonder fatigue at the latest “bombshell” scandals and iniquities revealed, unable to maintain their metaphorical clutching of pearls for yet another hissy-fitting publicist telling all.
Brand Value Sharply Devalued
Not that the book is without its narrative strengths. Bower constructs his character arcs – Victoria’s increasingly desperate bids for legitimacy against the headwinds of commercial indifference, David’s gradual disillusionment with fame’s emptiness chief among them – with aplomb. Their separate, halting career evolutions from showbiz ingenues to world-straddling business juggernauts are delineated in intricate detail, with special attention paid to chronicling the various brand consultants, corporate shot-callers and, yes, opportunistic publicists who lubricate the Posh ‘n Becks hype machine at every turn.
Bower shows himself particularly astute at unpacking the boardroom realpolitik and corporate intrigue lurking behind deals and power grabs that fueled the Beckham’s relentless global branding push. We get a granular view into the frenzied negotiations over clothing lines, stadium proposals and other commercial initiatives that fall through while getting a voyeuristic peek at how each abortive venture fuels increasingly toxic squabbles between the celebrity marrieds and their respective entourages. The book is similarly ahead of the curve in documenting how the rise of social media has steadily wrested control of the branding narrative away from the elite publicity priesthood.
Family Matters
Ultimately, one of the most lasting takeaways from “The House of Beckham” may be the chilling portrait it paints of the casual exploitation and dehumanization that defines the Beckham brood’s childhood. Bower unsparingly chronicles the kids’ pimping out to corporate sponsors and red-carpet circuses, essentially from the womb onward, before most readers could even reliably recite their names.
The charming Mother ‘n Dad lovefest depiction Brand Beckham has so meticulously cultivated takes repeated gut-punches here as we alternate between accounts of Posh’s obsessively controlling parenting and her seeming indifference toward all other motherly duties. At one juncture, Bower leeringly suggests the family is careening “Full Clockwork Orange,” describing how son Brooklyn and his underage flame are being systematically hustled into a creepy celebrity-escort pipeline of high-fashion contracts and PR hoopla before they’ve barely entered puberty. It’s enough to make one pine for the Partridge Family.
Beckham, too, comes across as an absentee parent at best and willfully negligent at worst, perpetually jetting across the globe for the next promotional opportunity or boozy revel with Dave Gardner’s posh party set. One of the most poignant threads in the book captures his increasing alienation from his sons’ inherited athletic dreams, tugging at the reader’s heartstrings as their soccer and tennis ambitions go unfulfilled.
Trophy couple or sad cautionary tale about the perils of Brand uber alles? You be the judge.
The Misfire of Self-Immolation
Still, beneath the raucous burlesque of Hollywood Excess lies a disconcertingly sober central theme of two outwardly glamorous public figures self-immolating amidst the ashes of their own relentless self-commodification. For all the sitcom punchlines about Victoria’s oblivious mangling of bon mots and David’s Cheshire grin greasing yet another endorsement opportunity, Bower constructs a decidedly tragic threnody about a couple increasingly consumed by their own hype.
Scenes of the Beckhams zoning out in a joyless, Brideshead Revisited-esque ennui alternate with accounts of their increasingly desperate “wardrobe malfunction” publicity stunts and stunted attempts at introspection. By the closing chapters, the cumulative portrait that emerges is of two sad billionaire-playthings locked in a soulless pantomime – one that’s ultimately more “Sunset Boulevard” than any sort of aspirational lifestyle porn.
Your Mileage May Vary…
In the final analysis of The House of Beckham, whether or not Bower delivers a TKO on the Beckham’s public image or merely leaves them mildly bloodied and on the canvas is up to the reader. There’s no question The House of Beckham dishes up enough sweaty tabloid transgressions to feed the raptuous chattering-class appetite for gleeful schadenfreude—at least in the short term. But ultimately, the jury’s still out on whether the public at large will ditch their fawning view of the couple based on Bower’s often exhaustive but overcooked case for their moral failings.
Indeed, some readers (this one included) may start finding themselves performing the metaphorical written equivalent of tuning out by the final chapters of The House of Beckham , having grown inured to the author’s increasingly repetitive and overcompensating tone of self-satirizing outrage. At a certain point, does Bower begin to protest a bit too much about his subjects’ all-too-human peccadilloes and indulgences? You make the call.
Box Office Results Pending
If the public does ultimately embrace a post-Bower reckoning of the Beckham brand, what then? Some signs hint that the fallen icons themselves may be subtly attempting to get ahead of their reputational reframing by taking greater control of the narrative. Could it be mere coincidence that Netflix announced plans for an “intimate” David Beckham docuseries mere weeks before House of Beckham’s advance publicity hit Peak Frenzy? Or that Victoria continues to pivot toward a hipper, more self-effacingly authentic persona in recent interviews?
It will be exciting to watch the Battle of Beckham (Self-) Reinvention as it is surely just getting underway. In the meantime, Tom Bower’s opus guarantees a juicy and compulsively devour-able pit stop in the journey. But in the end, you may conclude it amounts to less than the final word in deconstructing the ultimate self-made celebrity power couple of our age.
