Beckham bombshell: It’s over
Posh meets divorce lawyer
Stepping off a plane and into the Sydney sunshine last week should have been a moment of bliss for Victoria Beckham. Instead, the devastated mother-of-four took a deep breath and reminded herself not to give away the one thought that had consumed her for days – divorce.
Insiders claim Victoria’s marriage to David Beckham has been strained since the British football legend decided to leave the family fold and base himself in Miami to launch a new soccer team.
But they say nothing could have prepared the former Spice Girl for the humiliation she felt when, just days before they were due to join Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex in Australia for the Invictus Games, David gave a TV interview in which he described their marriage as “hard work” and “complicated”.
A source close to the pop singer turned fashion designer tells
Woman’sDay that Victoria, 44, spent two days in floods of tears before picking up the phone to make an appointment with one of the UK’s top divorce lawyers, Fiona Shackleton.
“Victoria has already met with Fiona to go through her options and ensure all her ducks are in a row if the worst does happen,” tells t our source. “After the meeting, m she’s been faced with w the harsh reality of just h how much she could lose – not only financially but also i in terms of her entire brand a and reputation.
“She’s petrified that if she divorces, d Brand Beckham will w fall apart and everything she’s worked so hard for will have been for nothing. But friends and family have urged her to think about her own sanity and the kids, who are clearly being
affected by all this and realise things will be better er if she just makes the cut rather than living a lie.”
Victoria was given a heads-up about what David had said about their crumbling 19-year marriage before the pre-recorded interview for r Aussie TV show TheSunday day
Project was aired and a friend says she was blindsided by her husband’s choice of words to describe their relationship.
“She had no idea why he would say such insensitive things and publicly embarrass her like this,” reveals the pal. “It was like a nuclear bomb had gone off in the Beckham household when she found out. She was in pieces.”
Break-inblues
After consulting her lawyer, Victoria flew to Germany and spent two days at a $1900-anight stress management clinic before rejoining David, 43, and their kids, Brooklyn, 19, Romeo, 16, Cruz, 13, and Harper, seven, in London for their 22-hour journey to Sydney.
Things, however, only got worse while the family was in the air – their $12 million Cotswolds holiday home was targeted by three masked men who used a ladder to peer into an upstairs room. Luckily, neighbours chased the would-be burglars away and police were still investigating the security breach when the family arrived in Sydney, with David promptly releasing CCTV of the intruders to the media.
“It seemed to Victoria that David leaked the footage to
deflect the gossip that was raging about his interview,” our source alleges, “and it left her feeling even more hopeless about the state of their marriage.”
The Beckhams arrived Down Under just in time for David’s interview to go to air and insiders say Victoria cringed as he told the world, “When you’ve been married for the amount of time that we have, it’s always hard work. It becomes a little more complicated.”
Soon after, she was photographed looking down in the dumps, with Cruz putting an arm around her shoulders as the family headed out in Sydney.
“Victoria knows she has to cut the cord soon,” claims our source. “She is still half in denial and praying for a miracle to happen to fix her marriage, but as the weeks go on and she continues to drag it out, things are only becoming worse. She knows that if they continue living in denial, they’ll never find happiness.”
Friends say before David’s interview, Victoria was already on a knife edge after he opted not to appear with her on the October cover of British
Vogue. Instead, she looked to all the world like a single parent, posing on the cover with her four kids and their cocker spaniel Olive.
And given that David already spends most of his time in Florida and is now house-hunting for his own permanent pad in Miami, Victoria is at a new low.
“She’s got to the point where she’s crippled with anxiety and is suffering from panic attacks,” our source claims. “She’s paranoid that David’s going to pull something else out of the bag that will humiliate her all over again.”
Now, more than ever, adds the source, Victoria needs to keep her head.
“She’s started loosely penning a statement for what she feels is now inevitable. And she’s aware that this could become one of the most bitter divorce battles in showbiz. Victoria wants full custody of the kids, but she will have a fight on her hands. David will want joint custody at the very minimum.”