Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety four, Victoria Adams answered a call out
Speaker 1: in a magazine looking for a new girl band. While
Speaker 1: her voice needed work, she had the IP factor, with
Speaker 1: management praising her grace and sophistication.
Speaker 2: And I wanted to sing and dance, but again I
Speaker 2: wasn't the best. It was always just about working really,
Speaker 2: really hard.
Speaker 1: From there, The Spice Girls was born and Victoria shot
Speaker 1: to international fame as posh Spice. Renowned for her strict
Speaker 1: no smiling rule, Victoria became misunderstood by the public.
Speaker 2: I think people probably see me as a miserable patty bitch.
Speaker 2: To be completely honest in a.
Speaker 1: Romance made in nineties Heaven, Victoria's high profile marriage to
Speaker 1: football superstar David Beckham defined the era.
Speaker 3: They were both famous in their own right, but when
Speaker 3: they came together, it went and they became twenty times
Speaker 3: as famous, you know, as a couple.
Speaker 1: With it, though, came intense media scrutiny and wards of
Speaker 1: paparazzi following their every move.
Speaker 2: I went from being a regular teenager to all of
Speaker 2: a sudden being on the cover of every magazine, every
Speaker 2: tabloid newspaper, constantly being talked about. Herds of paparazzi and
Speaker 2: fans outside my family home, and it happened almost overnight.
Speaker 1: As well as a string of Chuning scandals.
Speaker 2: The chemistry between David and I were so strong that
Speaker 2: everyone was aware, and people weren't happy, obviously.
Speaker 3: Because I was being very unprofessional and he's a married man.
Speaker 2: I was very very upset because as much as he's
Speaker 2: telling me this is not true, I swear on our
Speaker 2: unborn babies life this is not true. I am still reading.
Speaker 2: He had a huge erection as he stood up and
Speaker 2: walked away from where we'd been rolling about for the
Speaker 2: last three hours. And I'm reading this seven months pregnant,
Speaker 2: and David is saying yes, but I don't even know
Speaker 2: who this person is.
Speaker 1: We are journalists Kay Amy and Sophie Torbat and this
Speaker 1: is our new series Unspoken, where we bring you the
Speaker 1: unspoken stories behind the biggest pop culture headlines to rock
Speaker 1: the nineties and early noughties. Ever since the Beckham doco
Speaker 1: dropped back in October, we have been so.
Speaker 3: Keen to bring this story to you.
Speaker 1: And while the doco was much loved, one criticism of
Speaker 1: it was there wasn't enough posh spice, So that is
Speaker 1: what we're bringing you today a deep dive on Victoria Beckham. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and she is someone who is quite misunderstood by the
Speaker 1: general public because often we see her in paparazzi photos
Speaker 1: where she's frowning or pouting. She often never smiles, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people were quite surprised that she seemed
Speaker 1: to have such a great sense of humour in the documentary.
Speaker 1: She was so iconic in that doco, and that's just
Speaker 1: what's left people wanting more of her. I suppose Victoria
Speaker 1: is known more for her image rather than her personality. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I suppose we've found out that her personality is
Speaker 1: a lot more interesting than that image that she puts
Speaker 1: out there. Yeah. Well, despite being admired and loved by
Speaker 1: generation of young girls in the nineties, Victoria said that
Speaker 1: her childhood was in complete contrast. So she grew up
Speaker 1: as Victoria Adams in Hertfordshire with her parents Jackie and
Speaker 1: Anthony Adams, sister Luise and brother Christian. Now her mum
Speaker 1: was an insurance clerk and hairdresser, whilst her father founded
Speaker 1: an electronics wholesale business and the company was a big
Speaker 1: success and with it it brought a comfortable lifestyle for
Speaker 1: the Adams family. It's only just struck me now that
Speaker 1: she was part of the Adams family, because of course
Speaker 1: that was a television show about a scary family growing up,
Speaker 1: and we've seen Wednesday Adams on Netflix. I do wonder
Speaker 1: if that was part of the reason why she was
Speaker 1: bullied so much at school. She has said that jealousy
Speaker 1: was a big part of why she wasn't popular at school.
Speaker 1: In an interview during her two thousand and four documentary
Speaker 1: Being Victoria Beckham, she said that she was targeted for
Speaker 1: her privileged upbringing.
Speaker 3: Here's what she said.
Speaker 2: I never really fitted in at school, partly because I
Speaker 2: came from quite privileged family. My dad, when he first
Speaker 2: started up his company, his ambition was to have a
Speaker 2: Rolls Royce and he said, I'm going to have a
Speaker 2: Rolls Royce and he did, and it haunted me. But
Speaker 2: he did have one.
Speaker 1: So Victoria's dad would drop her off at school in
Speaker 1: the Rolls Royce, which antagonized the bullies even more. And
Speaker 1: perhaps this is why she was so funny about it
Speaker 1: when David brought it up in the recent doco. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's clear that it is a sow point for her.
Speaker 1: It is quite confusing though, because at our school growing up,
Speaker 1: I think if you were to rock up in a
Speaker 1: Rolls Royce, everyone would be jealous of you, but in
Speaker 1: a good way.
Speaker 3: They'd want to have a ride in it.
Speaker 1: I think it would depend on the student though, because
Speaker 1: I can imagine if someone wasn't very popular and they
Speaker 1: were being picked up in a Rolls Royce, that would
Speaker 1: stand out, and people don't tend to like people that
Speaker 1: are different at school. I was surprised to hear that
Speaker 1: Victoria wasn't very confident about her appearance at school because
Speaker 1: she was arguably the most glamorous spic scale.
Speaker 3: Let's have a listen to what she said.
Speaker 2: When I was at school, I was a complete minga.
Speaker 2: I had permed hair the lot, not the best looking.
Speaker 1: He always laughed when I hear the word minga, because
Speaker 1: it's not a term that we use here in Australia. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a bit of a blast from the past as
Speaker 1: well now. As well as not being confident in her appearance,
Speaker 1: she also struggled to make friends and said that she
Speaker 1: never really fit in at school, and Victoria's mum, Jackie,
Speaker 1: said she was always aware that in the school holidays
Speaker 1: no one ever phoned for Victoria or asked her to
Speaker 1: go out and play dates or come around.
Speaker 3: I bet they're regretting that now.
Speaker 1: It was a similar story for David Beckham growing up,
Speaker 1: because he didn't have a large group of friends at
Speaker 1: school and it was only until he joined Manchester United
Speaker 1: that he forged some of those strong friendships that went
Speaker 1: on into his adulthood. So I wonder if that's why
Speaker 1: he and Victoria were so besotted with one another and
Speaker 1: became each other's worlds when they did finally meet. Well,
Speaker 1: they clearly connected on that. When Victoria turned sixteen, she
Speaker 1: did start attending Lane's Dance School, where she studied dancing modeling,
Speaker 1: and she was inspired by the musical film Fame and
Speaker 1: had her heart set on a musical career. So it
Speaker 1: was at this school that Victoria started developing insecurities that
Speaker 1: would follow her for the rest of her life. In
Speaker 1: a two thousand and four documentary, Victoria said for the
Speaker 1: first time she became self conscious about her weight.
Speaker 3: Here's what she said.
Speaker 2: I first remember starting to get very self conscious about
Speaker 2: the way that I look at my figure when I
Speaker 2: was sixteen and I went to Lane's Dancing School, they
Speaker 2: do weigh you, they do make you very conscious of
Speaker 2: your weight. And as much as part of me would
Speaker 2: actually sit here and say that's terrible because you are
Speaker 2: making people have eating disorders, one side of me says that,
Speaker 2: but the other side of me says, yes, but to
Speaker 2: be a dancer, you do have to be small. It's
Speaker 2: hard and it's horrible. And basically she was probably actually
Speaker 2: preparing us for what we were going to be told
Speaker 2: when we left. Some of the girls at these dancing
Speaker 2: schools eat tissues. I mean not just anorexic or bollimik,
Speaker 2: they eat tissues that I mean, the things that people
Speaker 2: try to lose weight is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: During the documentary, producers also interviewed Betty Lane, who's the
Speaker 1: principal of Lane's dance school, and she said, if you're
Speaker 1: going into the specific field where your foresake is of importance,
Speaker 1: then we have to bring it to your attention. She
Speaker 1: continued saying, I would not say that Victoria was fat
Speaker 1: while she was training, but she did possibly need to
Speaker 1: lose some pounds during her time here, as most of
Speaker 1: them do. Now. As part of the documentary, Victoria came
Speaker 1: back to visit the school and hand out awards to
Speaker 1: the current students, and it was so awkward because despite
Speaker 1: Victoria giving back to the school while she was at
Speaker 1: the peak of her fame, Betty was quick to point
Speaker 1: out that there were a lot more girls with more
Speaker 1: talent than Victoria that are doing less than her, So
Speaker 1: she was referring that Victoria simply got lucky.
Speaker 3: With her career.
Speaker 1: Gee, she sounds like such a lovely world, not only
Speaker 1: commenting on a sixteen year old's appearance, but then such
Speaker 1: a backhanded comment.
Speaker 3: She kind of sounds like, you know, the show dance Mums. Yes,
Speaker 3: she does well.
Speaker 1: Victoria herself, she has always been self deprecating about her
Speaker 1: singing ability, and she really plays into the joke, which
Speaker 1: is something I really like about her. She's even done
Speaker 1: skits about her microphone always being turned off and making
Speaker 1: sure it's turned on during interviews, so she has some
Speaker 1: fun with it. And she knows that pop stardom is
Speaker 1: more about branding and star quality than simply your voice,
Speaker 1: and she's always been adamant that she's worked really hard
Speaker 1: to get there. In a twenty twenty interview, she said,
Speaker 1: I wanted to go on the stage, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to sing and dance, but again I wasn't the best.
Speaker 1: It was always just about working really, really hard. I
Speaker 1: was very ambitious, very determined, never afraid to put in
Speaker 1: the hard work, and very focused. Now I didn't realize this,
Speaker 1: but Victoria's first real boyfriend was not David Beckham. It
Speaker 1: was actually Mark would So she was just fourteen when
Speaker 1: she met him for the first time at her parents' house,
Speaker 1: of all places. So Mark was working for a parent's
Speaker 1: company as an alarm engineer and he was on the
Speaker 1: job fixing their electrics when the chance meeting occurred. So
Speaker 1: they were together for six years, with Mark even living
Speaker 1: with Victoria in her parents' home in Hertfordshire Well. It
Speaker 1: was at this time, in nineteen ninety four, when Victoria
Speaker 1: spotted an advertisement in trade magazine The Stage, looking for
Speaker 1: singers to audition for a girl band, and shortly after
Speaker 1: Victoria auditioned for The Spice Girls. Mark really wanted to
Speaker 1: lock down this relationship and he proposed to Victoria. I
Speaker 1: love how quick he was on that, Like shit, he
Speaker 1: knew that he needed to lock that down. But even so,
Speaker 1: it's not like you're really getting any guarantee because joining
Speaker 1: a band like the spice girls. That's going to change
Speaker 1: your whole life. To be fair, they had been together
Speaker 1: for six years, so perhaps it was just the next
Speaker 1: step for them now despite not being married yet, Victoria
Speaker 1: began calling an Victoria Adams would and the name even
Speaker 1: appeared on early Spy Scales merchandise. I wonder how much
Speaker 1: that merchandise would be worth now, surely a lot now
Speaker 1: that you say it, I swear I have seen that
Speaker 1: name on merch before. It definitely doesn't have the ring
Speaker 1: of Beckham, does it, though Adam's will, No.
Speaker 3: It doesn't.
Speaker 1: I wonder if the management team behind the Spy Scales
Speaker 1: was pissed off about this, because normally, if you're in
Speaker 1: a girl group or a boy band, they want you
Speaker 1: to appear single so that people want to date you
Speaker 1: when you're really enticing. So it's pretty interesting that she
Speaker 1: even added the second name onto her own.
Speaker 3: Well, the engagement didn't last long.
Speaker 1: Mark was left heartbroken when Victoria ended their six year
Speaker 1: relationship just as the band was taking off.
Speaker 3: As you do.
Speaker 1: She did open up about the breakup on Channel four,
Speaker 1: saying it wasn't the right person for me. I wasn't
Speaker 1: enjoying myself so that had to end. She did admit
Speaker 1: she didn't give the ring back.
Speaker 3: Here's what she said. I didn't give him the ring back.
Speaker 2: Eye if I've still got it because it was a
Speaker 2: wicked dream. It's not horrible.
Speaker 1: I love that she calls it a wicked ring. This
Speaker 1: just adds to Victoria's quota of engagement rings because it's
Speaker 1: been widely publicized that David has given Victoria fifteen engagement
Speaker 1: rings over their twenty four year marriage. So really, if
Speaker 1: we're doing the math, she has sixteen if we add
Speaker 1: Mark's ring. I really want to see what this first
Speaker 1: engagement ring looks like, because I'm sure the other fifteen
Speaker 1: that Beckham has given her has shit all over it.
Speaker 3: Poor Mark. Now.
Speaker 1: At the time of their breakup, things were pretty cordial
Speaker 1: in the media. Mark had only nice things to say
Speaker 1: about Victoria. In nineteen ninety seven, he told the people
Speaker 1: that it was a very special relationship, but that part
Speaker 1: of my life is over. It's sad because we were
Speaker 1: together for a long time. But she got what she
Speaker 1: always wanted and I'm proud of her now. Things did
Speaker 1: turn nasty, though, when Mark gave a paid interview to
Speaker 1: a newspaper saying that he had sex with Victoria on
Speaker 1: a train. Victoria said that she'd lived a very shelter
Speaker 1: life until that point and couldn't believe what she was
Speaker 1: reading in the paper, and said it was particularly horrifying
Speaker 1: for her to see her dad opening the paper that morning. God,
Speaker 1: that would be absolutely mortifying. She said in her two
Speaker 1: thousand and four documentary, I wouldn't even mind, but it
Speaker 1: didn't even happen. Most people have a price, which is
Speaker 1: really sad.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: In the same interview, Victoria also seemingly dismissed their relationship, saying,
Speaker 1: for some reason we got engaged. He was an alarm engineer.
Speaker 1: If only he stayed in that cupboard that I met
Speaker 1: him in my mom and dad's house. Now, Mark was
Speaker 1: really hurt by these comments, and he did seek revenge.
Speaker 1: So he appeared on a two thousand and five documentary
Speaker 1: called Victoria Beckham's Secrets, and this is where he spoke
Speaker 1: candidly about their sex life. So he told the documentary
Speaker 1: that he took the singer's virginity at seventeen and claims
Speaker 1: she was addicted to sex and I quote went like
Speaker 1: an express train during a romp in the toilets of
Speaker 1: a train. How disrespectful. I hate the wording took the
Speaker 1: singer's virginity as if it's something that you can take
Speaker 1: from someone, and just trying to phrase her as this
Speaker 1: sex maniac. We know back in the early two thousands
Speaker 1: that this was something that wasn't seen in a positive light.
Speaker 3: It was very slut shaming. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Ahead of the documentary airing, a Channel five spokesperson said,
Speaker 1: as they always say, revenge is a dish best served cold.
Speaker 1: Mark has never spoken before in public about his relationship
Speaker 1: with Victoria, but feels it is time to set the
Speaker 1: record straight. She has made him look foolish in front
Speaker 1: of the cameras. They actually dated for six years and
Speaker 1: split up shortly before she started dating David Beckham in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven. Mark was quite hurt by what she
Speaker 1: said and doesn't intend sparing Victoria's blushes. What a way
Speaker 1: to promote your documentary.
Speaker 3: But what a poor guy.
Speaker 1: He was hurt, so he decided to slut shame Victoria.
Speaker 3: Like what a dick heare all.
Speaker 1: Like, he was completely jealous when it came out that
Speaker 1: she was dating David Beckham. Yeah, Well, as we touched on,
Speaker 1: Victoria spotted the advertisement for a girl group in the
Speaker 1: Stage magazine, and the band was the brainchild of father
Speaker 1: and son duo Chris and Bob Herbert, who arranged a
Speaker 1: series of auditions in central London in nineteen ninety four
Speaker 1: when he noticed there was a huge gap in the
Speaker 1: market for a girl group. I was surprised to hear
Speaker 1: the only four hundred women responded to the ad and
Speaker 1: audition for the group, and the auditions were an open call,
Speaker 1: with the girls scored on a range of categories during
Speaker 1: the audition process, including dance, singing, looks and personality. It
Speaker 1: sounds like some sort of Miss Universe competition now. Victoria
Speaker 1: said she was the only one to use the piano
Speaker 1: in her audition and belt it out a cabaret performance
Speaker 1: whilst the other girls were all singing Queen of the
Speaker 1: Night from Whitney Houston. Now. While Victoria's voice wasn't as
Speaker 1: strong as the other girls, Chris liked that she was graceful,
Speaker 1: classic and sophisticated.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: As for Jerry halliwell, she almost didn't make the band,
Speaker 1: so Chris invited her along to the audition and just hours.
Speaker 3: Before she pulled out.
Speaker 1: This was because she had got really badly burnt on
Speaker 1: a holiday in Spain and it made it really hard
Speaker 1: for her to dance and sing.
Speaker 3: Poor Ginger.
Speaker 1: No, So, despite not attending the initial audition, Jerry went
Speaker 1: out to a bar for a few drinks and she
Speaker 1: proceeded to call Chris and Bob Herbert and demanded to
Speaker 1: be included in the callback audition. Now she was granted
Speaker 1: that wish and made sure to stand out at the
Speaker 1: next audition. Melbe said Jerry looked like a mad, eccentric
Speaker 1: nutter from another planet, just what you want to look
Speaker 1: like at an audition.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Melc was also a late call up, so she only
Speaker 1: became a Spy Scale after another performer by the name
Speaker 1: of Leanne Morgan was removed from the process. So Morgan
Speaker 1: was twenty three at the time and was deemed too
Speaker 1: old to join the group because the Herberts wanted the
Speaker 1: spy Scales to be younger than that.
Speaker 3: That just blows my mind.
Speaker 1: Twenty three too old now. Another singer called Michelle Stevenson
Speaker 1: briefly became an official member, but that came to a
Speaker 1: quick end. So according to Chris, Michelle was fired from
Speaker 1: the Spy Skirls because she wasn't fitting in and didn't
Speaker 1: Gel with the rest of the band. Victoria backed this
Speaker 1: statement up, saying Michelle didn't have.
Speaker 3: The work ethic needed to be a Spice Girl.
Speaker 1: She said she couldn't be asked to put in the
Speaker 1: same amount of work that the other Spice Girls were. Now, Michelle,
Speaker 1: of course says that she does regret the decision because
Speaker 1: she's not a multi millionaire, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: when she left the group, she knew she was doing
Speaker 1: the right thing, and she still thinks it was the
Speaker 1: right thing now. Once Melby, Emma Bunton and Jerry Halliwell
Speaker 1: were officially selected, they became members of a band called Touch.
Speaker 1: But in nineteen ninety five, the band left their original
Speaker 1: management and teamed up with musical manager Simon Fuller and
Speaker 1: signed to deal with Virgin Records, so they underwent a
Speaker 1: complete rebrand and were named the Spy Skirls.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: I did not realize they were originally called Touch. That
Speaker 1: seems like such a shit name in comparison. I wonder
Speaker 1: if it's only because we know the name as it
Speaker 1: is now. I'm just surprised that the management didn't make
Speaker 1: Melby and Melse change their name.
Speaker 3: Having two members called mel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now Victoria said that they had lost confidence with
Speaker 1: their original managers, Bob and Chris, as everything seemed to
Speaker 1: be moving so slowly, and they really like Simon Fuller
Speaker 1: because he had a good reputation in the industry. In
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six, they released their debut album, Spice, which
Speaker 1: became a worldwide commercial hit, with the album peaking at
Speaker 1: number one in more than seventeen countries and it was
Speaker 1: certified multi platinum in twenty seven countries, and the album
Speaker 1: has since sold thirty million copies worldwide.
Speaker 3: Now, I would have thought that.
Speaker 1: A highly paid marketing team would have devised the Spice
Speaker 1: Girl's nicknames. So over the years we've come to know
Speaker 1: them as Baby, Scary, Sporty, Ginger, and Posh. But Melb
Speaker 1: broke the illusion, telling the Huffington Post that there was
Speaker 1: actually a magazine editor who gave them their nicknames. So
Speaker 1: she said, it was actually a lazy journalist that couldn't
Speaker 1: be bothered to remember all of our names, so he
Speaker 1: just gave us nicknames. And we were like, oh, well
Speaker 1: that kind of works. I don't mind my name. Do
Speaker 1: you like your name Baby Posh? We were like, let's
Speaker 1: just go with it. The journalist in question was Peter Lorraine,
Speaker 1: who ran UK magazine and TV show Top of the Pops,
Speaker 1: and he devised the nicknames for a feature story that
Speaker 1: he wrote on the band that ran in July at
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six, and as you said, Kate, he developed
Speaker 1: the names out of pure convenience. Peter said, Posh was
Speaker 1: the first one to be thought up because Victoria looks
Speaker 1: pretty sophisticated. The rest were pretty easy because the girl's
Speaker 1: characters were already really strong. The names just jumped out
Speaker 1: at us. We laughed the most when we came up
Speaker 1: with scary Now. One of Peter's colleagues, Jennifer, actually came
Speaker 1: up with Melby's name because she said that she was
Speaker 1: so loud at the photo shoot and tried to take
Speaker 1: over the whole thing. I always wondered when I was
Speaker 1: growing up why there was only actually one spice like
Speaker 1: ging Just spis made sense to me, But I'm like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make sense. Shouldn't they be like saffron spice
Speaker 1: or cinnamon spice? Is terrible that that only just tweaked
Speaker 1: for me. Ginger being a spice, I never even thought
Speaker 1: of that. I thought it as being a description. Victoria
Speaker 1: really found herself in the Spice Skirls. So in an interview,
Speaker 1: she said that being around the other Spy Skirls helped
Speaker 1: her come out of a shell and grow her confidence.
Speaker 1: Let's write a more of what she said.
Speaker 2: Do you know I think because I was so bullied
Speaker 2: when I was at school, I was very, very shy,
Speaker 2: a little bit introvert. And when I met the Spice Girls,
Speaker 2: I met four other girls like me. We were all
Speaker 2: underdogs in our own way. Individually not that great, but
Speaker 2: collectively we really worked and we had something very special
Speaker 2: and most people out there could relate to one of us.
Speaker 3: Together.
Speaker 2: We then began a mission of girl power. And this
Speaker 2: was a long time ago. I mean I remember the
Speaker 2: first time we went to a record company and we
Speaker 2: said we want to be on the cover of a magazine.
Speaker 2: We were told, well, girls don't sell magazines. You know,
Speaker 2: you're never going to find yourself on the cover of
Speaker 2: a magazine as a girl group. You know, people only
Speaker 2: want to see boys on magazines. And we began this
Speaker 2: mission of girl power. We're saying, you know, we're not
Speaker 2: just as good as boys, right, ladies, we're better, And
Speaker 2: we broke barriers and we went on a mission to
Speaker 2: empower not just girls, but yes, boys as well. And
Speaker 2: it's okay if you're the underdog, it's okay, if you're
Speaker 2: not the popular one, it's okay if you're different. It's
Speaker 2: about embracing who you are and being proud of that.
Speaker 1: I forgot that the Spice Girl's mantra was all about
Speaker 1: girl power and I am so here for that. Well,
Speaker 1: Victoria said that it's still her mantra in her beauty
Speaker 1: and fashion line. She's all about girl power and women's succeeding.
Speaker 3: Well, we need to.
Speaker 1: Get into when Posh met beck so Victoria was at
Speaker 1: the peak of her career when she met football at
Speaker 1: David Beckham. At this stage it was Victoria who was
Speaker 1: really the famous one. So David was only twenty two
Speaker 1: at the time, while Victoria was twenty three, now the
Speaker 1: older woman all of one year old. And while David
Speaker 1: Starr was on the rise, he wasn't yet playing in
Speaker 1: the first team. However, Victoria was at the peak of
Speaker 1: her career with the Spice Girls. Now David's coach at
Speaker 1: Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson was desperate for his players'
Speaker 1: social lives to be stable, so he didn't want his
Speaker 1: players out parting on the weekends or hooking up with
Speaker 1: different girls each week. So ideally Alex Ferguson wanted David
Speaker 1: to meet a local girl. Pop the question and settled down.
Speaker 1: He definitely didn't want one of his players dating a
Speaker 1: Spice girl. It's pretty wild to hear about the first
Speaker 1: time that David laid eyes on Victoria because it happened
Speaker 1: to be when she was appearing on TV. So one night,
Speaker 1: when David and his teammate Gary Neville were watching TV,
Speaker 1: the spy Scirls appeared on the screen and David exclaimed
Speaker 1: to Gary, you see that one. I'm going to marry
Speaker 1: that one, the posh one in the black dress. Here's
Speaker 1: more of what David said back in two thousand and
Speaker 1: two about seeing Victoria for the first time.
Speaker 3: I searing that that cat suit, and it done it
Speaker 3: for me.
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 2: I was gone completely.
Speaker 3: So I think it was the hair that done it for.
Speaker 2: Me at first.
Speaker 3: I love his voice and the way he said it
Speaker 3: was what done it for me.
Speaker 1: A lot of people say that his voice ruins his looks,
Speaker 1: but I kind of like it.
Speaker 3: I feel like it adds to his character.
Speaker 1: Now when interviewed on the Beckham documentary, Gary Neville said
Speaker 1: that a lot of guys have done that in their
Speaker 1: lifetime before, but they don't fucking end up with them.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Think about how many hot guys you've seen in film
Speaker 1: clips or on movies, but you never are actually going
Speaker 1: to get a chance with them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but not everyone's David Beckham, No they're not.
Speaker 1: Well. Fast forward to March nineteen ninety seven and Victoria
Speaker 1: and Melsey aka Sporty Spice were invited to a Manchester
Speaker 1: United game and appeared on the pitch at halftime. Word
Speaker 1: quickly spread around the club that they were there, so
Speaker 1: before the game started, one player rushed into the clubrooms
Speaker 1: to tell the rest of the teammates that two Spice
Speaker 1: girls were in the building. So David quickly asked which ones,
Speaker 1: and to his delight, Posh Spice was in attendance. So
Speaker 1: he really turned it on for Victoria on the pitch,
Speaker 1: he kicked a goal during the game, and it was
Speaker 1: actually Victoria's manager who introduced her to David, so he
Speaker 1: told her that she should have a famous boyfriend and
Speaker 1: it'd be great for her career. So when they got
Speaker 1: a chance to finally meet later in the player's lounge.
Speaker 1: David was so nervous so he waved from the other
Speaker 1: side of the bar and could only muster a quick hello.
Speaker 1: He ended up anguishing over the missed opportunity for days
Speaker 1: and was gutted. It seemed like Victoria really wanted a
Speaker 1: chance to see him again, as the following week she
Speaker 1: attended another Manchester United game.
Speaker 3: And this is.
Speaker 1: Despite the fact that Victoria quite openly admits that she's
Speaker 1: not into for.
Speaker 3: Shelda still doesn't like it.
Speaker 1: No, she said, I'd seen pictures of him in magazines
Speaker 1: and he's obviously a really good looking boy. The fact
Speaker 1: I went to games was kind of Some would say
Speaker 1: to stalk him, I would say, to see him. So
Speaker 1: she ended up running into him at the player's lounge again,
Speaker 1: and this time David was standing with his family. She
Speaker 1: said all of the other footballers were at the bar,
Speaker 1: but he was talking to his parents, which she loved
Speaker 1: as she's very close to her family as well. Now
Speaker 1: by this stage, David had had a few drinks and
Speaker 1: thought I'm going to try and get her number. They
Speaker 1: talked for an hour and Victoria ended up writing her
Speaker 1: phone number on the aeroplane ticket that she'd used to
Speaker 1: board her flight to Manchester with It's really cute, because
Speaker 1: David said he still has that ticket that is very
Speaker 1: cute now. Both Victoria and David said that the first
Speaker 1: time they spoke, there was a connection straight away and
Speaker 1: they fancied each other immediately. They both knew things were
Speaker 1: going to move fast. In an open letter Victoria wrote
Speaker 1: for Vogue in twenty sixteen, she said it was love
Speaker 1: at FeAs site with David, and in her two thousand
Speaker 1: and two documentary she said, I do believe in love
Speaker 1: at first sight, and I did know from the first
Speaker 1: time that I met him that I was going to
Speaker 1: end up with him. Now, at the request of Victoria's management,
Speaker 1: the couple tried to keep their relationship under wraps, so
Speaker 1: they were told not to get photographed together as it
Speaker 1: would cause a media storm. So their friends had to
Speaker 1: get really crafty, explaining that they had to do a
Speaker 1: mission impossible to get David over to Victoria's house unnoticed
Speaker 1: by the paparazzi. So one close friend would meet David
Speaker 1: at a chain of restaurants in the UK called Little Chef,
Speaker 1: and David would park his car there and they would
Speaker 1: then sneak him in the boot with a blanket over him.
Speaker 3: They would then.
Speaker 1: Drive right past the press outside Victoria's house and he
Speaker 1: would go through the back gate and run so he
Speaker 1: wasn't photographed. Now, many of the couple's first dates were
Speaker 1: in car parks, and Victoria insisted that it's not a
Speaker 1: CD as it sound. In fact, she said that David
Speaker 1: was so shy that for the first few dates he
Speaker 1: didn't even try to kiss her. David said that he
Speaker 1: thought Posh was hoping for a kiss the first time,
Speaker 1: but he was just too shy to do it. Their
Speaker 1: first kiss finally ended up happening in David's BMW in
Speaker 1: a car park. So romantic. You've got to remember, though,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned, she was the biggest celebrity in this
Speaker 1: and I remember in the doco she pointed out that
Speaker 1: she wasn't like some girls who want to be waged.
Speaker 1: She didn't really need David for fame. She had her
Speaker 1: own fame. Yeah, but I mean it's still you still
Speaker 1: want a guy to kiss you first.
Speaker 3: No, you don't want to be the one making all
Speaker 3: the moves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you can understand why David would have been
Speaker 1: so nervous. It confuses me that they had all of
Speaker 1: their dates in car parks, because you'd think that there's
Speaker 1: more chance of the press spotting them in the car
Speaker 1: park instead of behind closed doors, especially if there's these
Speaker 1: steamy makeout sessions happening in the car.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I thought the same thing too.
Speaker 1: Blacked out windows, you guys. Yeah, but tru wouldn't they
Speaker 1: be able to follow the car like? That was the
Speaker 1: whole point, And they had to David in so he
Speaker 1: could even see her. I mean, they were clearly very
Speaker 1: clever the way they did it now despite being previously engaged.
Speaker 1: Victoria said that she'd never felt this way before about anyone,
Speaker 1: and she said that everything felt so right and she
Speaker 1: wanted to tell the world, but she had to hold back.
Speaker 1: David first told Victoria that he loved her at her parents' house,
Speaker 1: and from that day on their relationship was endgame. From
Speaker 1: all reports, David was absolutely infatuated by Victoria. His teammate
Speaker 1: Gary Neville said David was like an attic, spending every
Speaker 1: waking minute on the phone to Victoria and doing four
Speaker 1: hour car journeys just to see her.
Speaker 3: For twenty minutes.
Speaker 1: So when Victoria was on tour, he would even charter
Speaker 1: a tiny two seater plane to see her for a
Speaker 1: few hours and come back. This is giving me Travis
Speaker 1: Kelcey vibes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really is now.
Speaker 1: Gary said his behavior was starting to piss off their manager,
Speaker 1: Sir Alex Ferguson. David's mum, Sandra West, also seemed concerned
Speaker 1: that David's relafelationship with Victoria was going to jeopardize his career.
Speaker 1: She recalled in the Beckham documentary that when Victoria was
Speaker 1: away touring in another time zone, she would ring the
Speaker 1: house at three in the morning before a game just
Speaker 1: to speak to David. I get where his mum's coming from.
Speaker 1: I don't know how I'd feel about this new woman
Speaker 1: on the scene who starts calling all of the shots
Speaker 1: and ringing it these really ridiculous times of the day.
Speaker 1: Because for David, as we touched on, he didn't really
Speaker 1: have many friends growing up. His whole focus was football,
Speaker 1: So alarm bells would start ringing that suddenly, what's going
Speaker 1: to happen with his career? Is this going to go
Speaker 1: down the drain? Yeah? Well, Sandra did say, we will
Speaker 1: worry that he'd lose all that he'd worked for because
Speaker 1: football came first and then all of a sudden, it
Speaker 1: wasn't it's crazy to think that Posh and Becks managed
Speaker 1: to keep this relationship quiet from the press for three months.
Speaker 3: It wasn't until.
Speaker 1: David bought Victoria a Cartier watch the people started piecing
Speaker 1: it all together. So the perhaps had snapped a photo
Speaker 1: of David and Victoria outside her parents' house, and they
Speaker 1: managed to interview her dad about it. So Victoria's dad
Speaker 1: tried to keep the cover story going, with the headline reading,
Speaker 1: they're just good friends. In cis Posh Spice's dad they
Speaker 1: call it posh spos mister posh. Now, the first time
Speaker 1: the public truly saw them as a couple was when
Speaker 1: they were papped together out in public, with Victoria wearing
Speaker 1: a black dress and David in pale blue jeans and
Speaker 1: a black topt. This, yeah, was hot, and this was
Speaker 1: tabloid gold for the media, with the sports world and
Speaker 1: pop culture world perfectly colliding now. When breaking the news
Speaker 1: to the world, one publication wrote, Beckham scores a spy
Speaker 1: scale football star on date with Posh Victoria. Another article
Speaker 1: described their relationship as a romance made in nineties heaven,
Speaker 1: it continued saying throughout the decade, certain celebrity couples have
Speaker 1: defined the era, and for our age, there is no
Speaker 1: more perfect pairing than football ace and spy skirl Dominic
Speaker 1: Mahoane from the Sun said that they became twenty times
Speaker 1: more famous as a couple on their own. Anna Winter
Speaker 1: also summed it up perfectly in the Beckham doco, saying,
Speaker 1: when you have two equally charismatic people, it doubles the volume.
Speaker 1: It puts the heat volume right up well. David's teammate
Speaker 1: Gary Neville he likened Poshenbeck's popularity to that of Princess
Speaker 1: Diana and Prince Charles at the time, and that just goes.
Speaker 3: To show how big they were now.
Speaker 1: While David said he was uncomfortable with the aggression of
Speaker 1: the paparazzi, he did say he loved being in Posha's
Speaker 1: world and that it was exciting now. David and Victoria
Speaker 1: were only together for ten months when David popped the question.
Speaker 1: According to author Gwen Russell, who wrote a Rise Sir
Speaker 1: David Beckham, football celebrity legend, the couple floated the idea
Speaker 1: of getting married when Victoria was over in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: for the Spice World premiere movie. Now as soon as
Speaker 1: she got home, they set the wheels in motion, looking
Speaker 1: at rings together. According to reports, Victoria told David what
Speaker 1: her dream ring was, and he had it specially made
Speaker 1: for her. So this was one of those proposals where
Speaker 1: both parties very much knew it was happening. In the book,
Speaker 1: it quotes David as saying, I wasn't nervous at all
Speaker 1: about getting engaged. We decided a while ago we would
Speaker 1: make it official this weekend. I got the ring and
Speaker 1: was really looking forward to it. But when the moment came,
Speaker 1: there were a few butterflies now for the proposal itself.
Speaker 1: They checked into a hotel after one of David's games,
Speaker 1: and David presented Victoria with thirty roses upon arrival. She
Speaker 1: was then taken into the room to find it filled
Speaker 1: with red and yellow lilies. The couple then both got
Speaker 1: into bathrobes and ordered dinner and champagne to the room.
Speaker 1: According to the book, Victoria said, we were sitting in
Speaker 1: our dressing gowns when David pulled out the ring and
Speaker 1: got down on one knee and said, will you marry me?
Speaker 3: Victoria?
Speaker 1: Now, in what was very reminiscent of a royal photo,
Speaker 1: call on January twenty fifth, nineteen ninety eight, which happened
Speaker 1: to be the next day after David popped the question.
Speaker 1: The couple called the press to a hotel in Cheshire
Speaker 1: to announce their engagement. Despite the frosty January weather. Victoria
Speaker 1: wore an iconic black miniskirt with a black turtleneck, leather
Speaker 1: jacket and a cross around her neck. David wore a
Speaker 1: matching all black outfit. The couple unveiled the ring to
Speaker 1: the press, and it was a three carrot Marquez cut
Speaker 1: diamond on a plain yellow gold band, which was handcrafted
Speaker 1: by Manchester jewelers Boodle and Dunthorn.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The ring reportedly cost around eighty five thousand pounds at
Speaker 1: the time. Victoria told the press, I'm the happiest girl
Speaker 1: in the world today. I'm with the man I know
Speaker 1: I'm going to grow old and wrinkly with now. Victoria
Speaker 1: did have a trick up her sleeve. So as we
Speaker 1: touched on the spy skills are the pioneers of girl power.
Speaker 1: So Victoria decided that she wanted to pop the question
Speaker 1: to David too, so she bought David a fifty thousand
Speaker 1: pound diamond encrusted gold ring from exclusive jewelry store Van
Speaker 1: Cleef and Apples on Rodeo Drive in Hollywood. Victoria reportedly said,
Speaker 1: I said yes, then produced my own ring and said,
Speaker 1: don't forget girl power, will you marry me? And David
Speaker 1: found the stunt very funny.
Speaker 3: I love this.
Speaker 1: I've always thought, why does a woman have to wear
Speaker 1: an engagement ring but not a man? And you'd want
Speaker 1: David Beckham wearing an engagement ring too. You want to
Speaker 1: lock that down like her ex boyfriend tried to lock
Speaker 1: her down. Yeah, when you're engaged to arguably the hottest
Speaker 1: man alive, I think you want him wearing a ring
Speaker 1: and everyone knowing that he's taken. Now, just before their engagement,
Speaker 1: David got the call up to play for the English
Speaker 1: soccer team, and he'd always dreamt of playing for his
Speaker 1: country in the World Cup. So when news broke of
Speaker 1: their engagement, one outlet said whilst they may have found love,
Speaker 1: finding the time to be together will be a problem,
Speaker 1: with David setting his sights on the World Cup and
Speaker 1: Victoria starting on her world tour with the Spice Girls. Now,
Speaker 1: just six months after getting engaged, the couple fell pregnant
Speaker 1: with their first child, Brooklyn. In the biography Arise Sir
Speaker 1: David Beckham, Victoria said, when I told David I was pregnant,
Speaker 1: he just art weeping. He must have cried for about
Speaker 1: an hour, and I had tears running down my face too.
Speaker 1: It was a very emotional moment for both of us.
Speaker 1: The baby wasn't planned, so it was a surprise mixed
Speaker 1: with real delight. I think telling David he was going
Speaker 1: to be a dad really put things into perspective for him.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: Victoria's timing was rather interesting. She dropped the news to
Speaker 1: David the night before his infamous red card moment. So
Speaker 1: David was playing for the English team in the World
Speaker 1: Cup against Argentina, and it had always been David's dream,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, for him to play for his country.
Speaker 1: So during the game, Argentinian midfielder Diego Simon committed a
Speaker 1: foul on David, and after David hit the ground, Diego
Speaker 1: went to ruffle the back of David's head and David
Speaker 1: immediately responded by kicking his leg back at Diego, milking
Speaker 1: it for all that was worth. Diego immediately fell to
Speaker 1: the ground and subsequently David received a red card for
Speaker 1: the supposed violent conduct and was sent off for the
Speaker 1: rest of the match. This was a very dark chapter
Speaker 1: in David's career, as he was blamed for England being
Speaker 1: knocked out of the World Cup. The whole country hated him.
Speaker 1: The media backlash was intense, with the English public turning
Speaker 1: on David. One headline from the Daily Mirror read ten
Speaker 1: heroic Lions, one stupid boy. They even took it a
Speaker 1: step further publishing a dartboard with David's face as the bullseye.
Speaker 1: Now he received death threats from fans, bullets in the mail,
Speaker 1: and an epigy of David was hung outside a pub
Speaker 1: in London. It's important to remember that he was only
Speaker 1: twenty three years old at the time. I was shocked
Speaker 1: when I heard about this in the doco. I still
Speaker 1: can't believe that this happened. I know sports stars are
Speaker 1: really put under the microscope, but I think even in Australia,
Speaker 1: when we're so passionate about sports, this wouldn't happen here.
Speaker 1: There was a bit of blame put on Victoria in
Speaker 1: the documentary because David's teammate and best friend, Gary Neville,
Speaker 1: said that while David was typically able to switch between
Speaker 1: football mode and his personal life. He wished that David
Speaker 1: had turned his phone off for that match, as the
Speaker 1: lack of focused may have cost him, and in the documentary,
Speaker 1: Victoria was quizzed about her decision to reveal this life
Speaker 1: changing news to David right before the biggest match of
Speaker 1: his career. She said in that interview that David wanted
Speaker 1: to leave the game to be with her, and he
Speaker 1: wasn't allowed to. She continued, I told David the night
Speaker 1: before the game. He was so happy, we both were,
Speaker 1: and there were never any doubts in my mind that
Speaker 1: I should tell him. I mean, it was what we wanted.
Speaker 1: He could have not been happier. The director, David Fisher Stevens,
Speaker 1: did quiz her further, saying, so you tell him right
Speaker 1: before the biggest game of his life? Did you think
Speaker 1: it would help him? And Victoria responded, I don't know really.
Speaker 1: She has said before that she doesn't really know much
Speaker 1: about soccer, so maybe it was just her being really
Speaker 1: excited and also very clueless. Why can't she tell her
Speaker 1: fiance that she's pregnant. It seems like they're trying to
Speaker 1: shift the blame onto her when it was actually the
Speaker 1: British press that hung him out to dry, and then
Speaker 1: the British public will have the result been different and
Speaker 1: David had a great game, they might have said, well,
Speaker 1: good on Posh Fitz, Yeah for revealing the pregnancy news.
Speaker 1: I can understand the criticism towards it, though, because sport
Speaker 1: is so much about the psychological aspects of it, and
Speaker 1: hearing huge news like that before such an important game
Speaker 1: is going to have an effect on you emotionally. It
Speaker 1: could have spurred him on. You just don't know how
Speaker 1: someone is going to react to that news.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The couple did break the news of their pregnancy in
Speaker 1: August nineteen ninety nine, and Victoria was twenty four and
Speaker 1: David was twenty three.
Speaker 3: The paper reported that the baby.
Speaker 1: Was not planned and that they will be getting married
Speaker 1: after the birth. Victoria also confirmed she wouldn't be leaving
Speaker 1: the band, but taking some time off. Just a few
Speaker 1: days after Posha's announcement, fellow spy Scale Melby, who was
Speaker 1: twenty three at the time, also announced she was pregnant
Speaker 1: with fiance Jimmy Gualzer. Now Jimmy was a Spice Boy
Speaker 1: dancer in the group's touring onto The news of two
Speaker 1: spy Skirls pregnancies out of wedlock led to complaints from
Speaker 1: parents that the band was corrupting the morals if impressionable
Speaker 1: young girls who worship them wow, so journalist Sally Banks
Speaker 1: wrote in The La Times, young girls will get the
Speaker 1: message that pregnancy out of marriage is okay, even cool.
Speaker 1: She continued, saying the spy Skirls fans saw their pregnancies
Speaker 1: as the ultimate expression of girl power. I get that
Speaker 1: this was back in the nineties, but I can't believe
Speaker 1: how fucked some of these quotes are. The idea that
Speaker 1: it's inconceivable that two engaged women are having a child
Speaker 1: out of wedlock, as if it's the worst thing that
Speaker 1: they've ever heard of, and such a terrible influence for
Speaker 1: their children.
Speaker 3: I think it's just reflective of what it was like back.
Speaker 1: In the nineties and early two thousands. I mean, we
Speaker 1: saw the rise of the purity rings. We saw Jessica
Speaker 1: Simpson coming out and declaring that she was a virgin
Speaker 1: alongside Britney Spears. So it does make sense that this
Speaker 1: was happening at that time, it.
Speaker 3: Doesn't it right now?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Vogue Britain approached David and Victoria to do a
Speaker 1: pregnancy photo shoot, and Victoria says she was so excited
Speaker 1: when the request came in as they'd never done something
Speaker 1: like that together. Now, of course, Victoria's bump took center
Speaker 1: stage in the photo, and when looking back reminiscing on
Speaker 1: the photo, Victoria said, I mean, now, would I do
Speaker 1: a photo shoot with my tummy showing? No, I absolutely wouldn't,
Speaker 1: But at the time I wasn't nervous. We were in
Speaker 1: love and we looked great. We didn't care. I love
Speaker 1: the fact that in the photo she was wearing her
Speaker 1: own high street top and trousers, and she said that
Speaker 1: she was very happy go lucky then, but it's now
Speaker 1: something that she wouldn't do. It's funny to think that
Speaker 1: showing the bump was such a big deal back then.
Speaker 1: We see pregnancy bumps on Instagram all the time. Now
Speaker 1: it's just the norm, but there was something so crazy
Speaker 1: about seeing a woman's pregnant belly on displaying Well, Vogue
Speaker 1: ended up gifting Victoria and David a blown up copy
Speaker 1: of this photo, which they hung very proudly in their
Speaker 1: Manchester apartment.
Speaker 3: Now that is where we are going to leave you
Speaker 3: for today.
Speaker 1: In next week's episode, While Victoria's pregnancy looked perfect on
Speaker 1: the glossy pages of British Vogue, the couple's first cheating
Speaker 1: scandal was brewing. In next week's show, we discuss Victoria's
Speaker 1: explosive reaction to those kissing rumors, how Victoria's life changed
Speaker 1: becoming a mother, and the wedding of the century. Well
Speaker 1: that is episode one of Unspoken. We really hope that
Speaker 1: you have enjoyed it. We will be sharing a bunch
Speaker 1: of nostalgic clips on our TikTok and Instagram which is
Speaker 1: at Outspoken Underscore the Underscore podcast.
Speaker 3: We would love to know if.
Speaker 1: You did enjoy it the show, Please share where you
Speaker 1: are listening to it from now. This episode was recorded
Speaker 1: on the traditional land of the Ghana people of the
Speaker 1: Adelaide Planes.
Speaker 3: We pay respect to elders past and present.