The day the Sussexes and the Beckhams really fell out has been revealed
The two superstar power couples looked as if they were destined to be great friends – until it all spectacularly fell apart in one key moment.
Royals
Don't miss out on the headlines from Royals. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Around 2017, the chi-chi area of Great Tew in the UK’s Cotswolds got a massive injection of celebrity mega wattage.
No sleepy backwater, the fashionable destination could suddenly boast not one but two superstar families having moved into the area who were, for a time, somewhat friendly. Great things seemed destined, two households both alike in their thirst for good PR.
And then it all fell apart – and for the six or so years since then, the Houses of Sussex and Beckham have reportedly been on the out and outs.
Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and David and Victoria Beckham are a quartet who have much in common on paper: Netflix deals, burgeoning entrepreneurial ambitions, healthy lashings of charity work, all united in their yen for the almighty dollar.
They all should be matey, but instead, the reported feud between the two couples has only become more entrenched with snubs, a State dinner and The Sun reportedly having come between them.
Just how did it all go so wrong for Harry’n’Megan’n’David’n’Victoria?
Let me take you back.
Haidressergate
David Beckham might hail from relatively humble roots but his ties to royalty go back decades, thanks to his willingness to get stuck into a nice bit of charity. His growing closeness to royalty was confirmed in 2011 when he and Victoria, pregnant with their fourth child, daughter Harper, were invited to the wedding of Prince William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales.
Fast forward to 2016 when Harry got himself a right looker and a woman with an actual job, Meghan Markle, as his new girlfriend. Love blossomed, cupid’s arrow struck and Victoria reportedly stepped in as a London fairy godmother of sorts for the Suits star.
The former Spice Girl, according to Tom Bower’s House of Beckham, wanted to “advance” her ties to the sizzlingly popular royal couple who were enjoying rocket ship popularity, so her team offered to share the designer’s beauty and hairdressing contacts in London.
Meanwhile Meghan, Bower has claimed, “asked Victoria to supply free clothes and handbags”, though this was ultimately blocked by Kensington Palace because of the royal rules governing freebies.
Still, all’s well that ends in exfoliation, right?
Of course not.
The LA layover
Even if the Palace said no, the Beckhams were still extending the generous hand of friendship to the duchess. While Bower fails to mention exactly when, he reports that at some point, around this time, “when Meghan privately returned to Los Angeles she had stayed in the Beckhams’ house in Beverly Hills. Her excuse was to avoid the paparazzi. At no cost, all her needs were secretly provided for by the Beckhams’ staff.
“If there was a hint that Meghan was taking advantage of her new status, the Beckhams pushed their gripes aside.”
(In a bit of foreshadowing, it would only be about three years until she would be back in California staying in another mansion borrowed from another much wealthier supporter).
‘Outrage’
But things reportedly went pear-shaped in December 2017 when The Sunpublished a story claiming that Meghan and Victoria had “grown close” and “bonded” over “pricey facials”.
A royal insider had told the paper: “Meghan has been really pleased with Victoria’s beauty recommendations and has her to thank for meeting new friends in London … Meghan trusts and appreciates her advice”.
The piece left Meghan “outraged” and the budding friendship between her and Victoria “crashed”.
Red faces and leaking
At this stage, Bower says a phone call took place that is toe-curling to even imagine. After the Sun story came out, “Harry was ordered to complain to David Beckham”, he writes.
“The telephone conversation was difficult. Beckham was embarrassed, but after speaking to his wife he denied that she had leaked any information.”
The damage was done, even if, as Bower speculates, the information was leaked by “a boastful publicist employed by Beckham”.
It wasn’t just trust that was supposedly the problem, but also money and rank.
According to Bower: “Meghan deluded herself that her status in the Royal Family placed her above Victoria in the social pecking order. She was irritated to discover that the Beckhams had considerably more wealth than herself”.
(Let the record show that I find it hard to believe a former pop star and frock-maker would ever socially trump an actual member of the royal family and I’m not sure how much store I put in that claim).
Down Under snub
Anyway, by now it’s May 2018 and the royal wedding is rolling around. While David and Victoria joined the procession of celebrities who made their way inside St George’s Chapel, “Meghan appeared to want to punish the Beckhams” and so had left them off the guest list for the night-time reception.
“Her veto was an insult,” Bower writes.
(That “insult” was one some of Harry’s oldest friends were also reportedly dealt, failing to make the cut for the fireworks and cocktails affair at Frogmore House that evening – while celebs like George and Amal Clooney, who had reportedly never met Harry or Meghan before, were asked to come along).
But this Sussex vs. Beckham story is far, far from over, because at this point, Harry invited David to attend that year’s Invictus Games in Sydney.
He duly agreed, taking his wife and their four kids. Some massive house on the North Shore was rented; Victoria was papped at Bondi Beach.
There was only one thing missing: Harry.
In Sydney, David reportedly turned up on the “agreed day” to meet the duke, but found himself “perplexed [about] why officials were playing a dance to keep him happy, but away from Harry. ‘Where is he?’ Beckham asked the Games’ officials as he waited. ‘When will I meet him?’ he kept asking”.
The problem was that, allegedly, Harry “had ordered that under no circumstances was the footballer to be allowed near him. Photographs of the two together were forbidden. The royal snub was brutal. David Beckham was puzzled. Why did the Prince refuse to meet him?
“The exclusion order, it later transpired, was issued by Meghan. She did not want any competition in the media from Beckham, and especially not from his wife Victoria.”
The $12,000 handbag
“Competition” or not, style is style and Victoria’s eponymous fashion line had it in chic spades.
Only two months after the Sydney situation, “forgetting the insults and swallowing her pride, Victoria agreed to provide a coat, dress, boots and a handbag worth £6000 ($A12,000) to Meghan for the Royal Family’s traditional Christmas Day parade in Sandringham. Later, Meghan wore a Beckham custom-made pregnancy outfit and a white coat and dress for a service in Westminster Abbey,” Bower writes.
Victoria could not have asked for better publicity. By that point in time, reports had started to emerge of a falling-out between Meghan and Kate, so photos of the two royal wives chatting on the way to church on December 25 immediately made headline news. Photos of the duchess wearing her ensemble went global.
Nothing had seemingly been forgiven or forgotten though.
‘Revenge’
“Revenge” is a dish best served via … frequent flyer points?
Four years after the Invictus mess, Prince William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales flew to Boston for the second outing of the prince’s Earthshot Prize. And who should have decided to “unexpectedly” make the 30-hour round trip from Qatar to the US to be a part of the event but David.
The timing of this gesture could not have been worse for Harry and Meghan, with that week a massive one for the Sussexes in their quest to conquer the US. Not only was the first “volume” of their Netflix series debuting but they were set to hit the red carpet in New York to receive the RFK Foundation’s Ripple of Hope award.
Bower argues that “the Sussexes were overshadowed by the constellation in Boston”.
Beckham had got his revenge for the Sydney snub.
My memory of that time is a little different and there were days in between the Boston and New York outings. Also, the Sussexes and their Netflix revelations generated a Grand Canyon’s worth of news coverage.
Still, it’s hard to argue with the fact that David making that international dash to support the Waleses was a very clear demonstration of which side of the royal bread he was buttering up.
The King calling
What must Harry have made of the photos of his fellow former Great Tew resident released earlier this year? Seven years on from those halcyon days, an extraordinary scene played out when King Charles welcomed David to his country estate Highgrove for a private meeting.
The two men, it was later revealed, discussed beekeeping (they are both into it) and the King’s Foundation charity. A month later, David officially became an ambassador for the Foundation, posting photos from the meeting including one of him and Charles enjoying a right good chuckle.
Those shots cannot have made for easy viewing for Harry. Around the time this Highgrove meeting was taking place, he had been back in the UK himself – but his father had declared that he was too busy to see his son.
David was getting exactly what he was being denied.
The ties between the Palace and Beckhams were on show in October when Prince William invited David to launch a new air ambulance, with both men having been involved in the fundraising effort to purchase it.
Making it
The ultimate confirmation of the Beckhams’ Tenzing Norgay-like social ascent came in early December when they made the guest list for the royal State banquet for the Amir and Sheikha of Qatar.
That David and Victoria were being bestowed with this honour while Harry can’t even, reportedly, get his father on the phone is a stunning a reordering of the natural topography.
Those Great Tew days must seem very far away now, the possibility of not only a great Sussex/Beckham friendship having long disintegrated but also all that promise of what the duke and duchess’ UK life could and should have been.
It nearly defies belief. Whoever thought the King and the World Cup star would one day end up happily nattering about bees while a royal duke was stuck idling away in self-exile on the other side of the world?
Yet here we are. With David now on the King’s Foundation books, with a Knighthood possibly in the pipeline and with both Meghan and Victoria having their own Netflix series set to launch in 2025, consider this very much to be continued.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles
Originally published as The day the Sussexes and the Beckhams really fell out has been revealed
Pic reveals drastic Meghan change
One photograph of the Duchess of Sussex contains a huge clue about what is to come for her and husband Prince Harry.
King breaks tradition first time in 14 years
King Charles has broken from a Christmas tradition for the first time in 14 years amid his ongoing cancer treatment.