ALISON BOSHOFF: What’s behind the sudden froideur between Posh and her new daughter-in-law Nicola Peltz? The pair used to fawn over each other’s pictures online but there’s been virtual silence for months
- Brooklyn and Nicola’s wedding, on April 9, felt like it was ‘all about the Peltz family’, according to one observer
- There’re rumours of Instagram froideur between Nicola Peltz, 27, and Victoria Beckham, 48, over the wedding
- It was revealed that Posh Spice has failed to ‘like’ any of the model’s Instagram posts for almost two months
- Nicola has also been strangely sparing in her likes on her mother-in-law’s Instagram since the wedding, too
- It all started so well between Posh and Nicola, both fashionistas with huge social media followings
- Beckham source says schism is ‘silly’; David and Victoria recently had dinner with the newly weds in Venice
At any big society wedding, the question of ‘the’ dress is usually the most anticipated of all.
Who’s the designer? How much did it cost and — as is frequently the case nowadays — how many will there be?
The wedding of Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Peltz, on April 9 this year at the Peltz family’s £76 million oceanfront mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, was no exception.
Speculators thought they could be sure of one thing, however. The bride would, at some point in the celebrations, almost certainly wear something designed by her new mother-in-law to be. Wouldn’t she?
Yet, over the next three days of festivities, not one VB label was chosen by 27-year-old Nicola. Instead she plumped for a couture wedding dress by Valentino.
On the eve of the wedding she wore a white trouser suit by Dior, and there were several custom-made Versace dresses too, all of which she gushed about in print in Vogue magazine. The omission struck some of the guests as ‘tactless’ and was compounded when Nicola laughed off suggestions that their wedding might resemble David and Victoria’s nuptials.
‘Their wedding was incredible and those pictures are iconic, but the wedding we were most inspired by was Iman and David Bowie’s,’ she told Vogue. Ouch. It has also emerged that the Beckhams were not seated on the top table with the bride and groom on the big day, as is the British custom.
Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Peltz (at the 2021 Met Gala September 13, 2021) got married on April 9 this year at the Peltz family’s £76 million oceanfront mansion in Palm Beach, Florida – and the Beckhams were very much not centre stage
The Beckhams were not seated on the top table with the bride and groom on the big day, as is the British custom, with a feeling that the wedding was all about the Peltz family
Although there may well be a perfectly plausible explanation for this: David and Victoria were not on the top table because, like the bride’s parents, they hosted their own table for family and friends.
Yet still, observers felt moved to comment on the dearth of Beckhams centre stage. As one said: ‘The top table was all Peltzes and it really felt as if the Beckhams were not at the forefront. There was a feeling that the wedding was all about the Peltz family, as you can imagine, as it was their house and their daughter and their son making the speeches.’
Since then, as I reported in my column yesterday, there’s been a notable Instagram ‘froideur’, made all the more obvious when compared to the warm exchange of gushings between Nicola and Victoria before the big day.
Back in 2021, Victoria liked 25 of Nicola’s posts in a three-month period, and Nicola liked 20 of hers in the same time frame. Now that has dwindled to a quarter of that amount. In fact, Victoria hasn’t liked a single post by Nicola since May 27 — almost two months ago, a veritable age in the capricious world of social media, where such things truly matter.
I’m told: ‘There seems to be some sort of a distance between the Beckham family and the Peltz clan, and Brooklyn and Nicola appear to be drawing away from the Beckhams. It’s probably only natural but they were very close to Brooklyn always.
‘The Beckhams would not be the first parents to find it challenging when their children marry and get absorbed into someone else’s family.’
A Beckham source, though, says talk of a schism is ‘silly’, and that David and Victoria are due to meet up with the newlyweds in America soon — and they all recently went out for dinner in Venice.
Yet still the rumours persist with the ill feeling, it is said, stemming from the wedding. Victoria hasn’t reacted to a number of pictures taken by Vogue on the day, shared by Nicola on Instagram in May, nor did she like pictures of Nicola and Brooklyn at the Met Gala in that month, too. Then there were four posts from her honeymoon with Brooklyn, spent on a yacht with her family in Italy — none of them liked by Victoria.
The Beckhams have been holidaying on another yacht nearby. It’s not clear whether they have seen one another.
The fashion world is now rife with speculation of a perceived Instagram froideur between Nicola Peltz and Victoria Beckham
Nicola Peltz added fuel to rumors of an Insta-feud with Victoria Beckham by pointedly posting an image of her husband Brooklyn’s ‘Peltz’ tattoo – just 20 minutes after DailyMail.com called out speculation of a social media froideur between the model and her mother-in-law
In turn, Nicola has also been strangely sparing in her likes on Victoria’s Instagram since the wedding, too.
She didn’t like Victoria’s gushing post celebrating her wedding anniversary with David, nor did she like Victoria’s post wishing David a Happy Birthday. Or Father’s Day — even though that post was accompanied by a picture of David Beckham with his son — and her husband — Brooklyn. There was a further oversight when Nicola didn’t like the birthday wishes Victoria sent to daughter Harper, who turned 11 earlier this month.
Last year, she not only liked Victoria’s birthday post to Harper, she put one out herself noting how much she loves her ‘little sis’. Victoria responded: ‘So sweet! We love you so.’
In terms of the wedding itself, Nicola didn’t like three posts posted by Victoria on the day, which is, arguably, understandable, given she was busy getting married, but this does seem to be a curious collection of oversights, one after another, on the part of both women.
Most recently, there was Nicola’s cover of Tatler magazine last month. She appeared looking retro-glam under the banner headline ‘The New Mrs Beckham’.
You might expect that both David and Victoria would like and comment on this since it explicitly references them and their family. But they did not. And Victoria did not like any of three further images from the magazine which Nicola shared the following day.
Then on Thursday night, Nicola posted a picture on her Instagram story of Brooklyn’s chest — with the word ‘Peltz’ inscribed in a cursive tattoo across it, and a cherub with an arrow sitting underneath.
She shared the snap just 20 minutes after Mail Online published my column asking why she so seldom likes any posts made by her in-laws.
This tattoo was done in February, when the love-birds were gearing up for their wedding. Brooklyn made the unusual step of taking her family name’s when he married, with both he and Nicola changing their names to Peltz-Beckham.
Speculation about chilling relations between Nicola, 27, and Victoria (pictured right together in July 2020), 48, emerged after it was revealed that Posh Spice has failed to ‘like’ any of the model’s Instagram posts for almost two months – including images of Brooklyn and his wife (pictured left together) on their honeymoon
Nicola’s timing in sharing the somewhat possessive ‘Peltz’ image has further fuelled rumours of a cooling with her in-laws. Yet it all started so well. Despite the generation gap, they had much in common. Fashionistas with huge social media followings and experiences of stardom, it looked like they were destined to be best buddies.
Both of them are in Vogue, both literally and metaphorically. Nicola, for instance, went to the Met Gala last year for the first time at the invitation of Vogue supremo Anna Wintour, who went on to put Nicola on the magazine’s cover — her first — as a bride.
Former Spice Girl Victoria has been on 29 Vogue covers and counting, and trotted up the red carpet at the Met at the invitation of Wintour five times, starting in 2003 when she showed up in a Dolce and Gabbana dress and those trademark ‘torpedo bazookas’.
At her most recent appearance, in 2014, she was a vision of restrained elegance in one of her own designs. She and Wintour are friends, and Wintour has long supported Victoria’s fashion label.
Nicola and Victoria are also close to Vogue UK editor Edward Enninful, and other leading figures like Dior’s Kim Jones.
And of course, they are linked by Victoria’s son Brooklyn Beckham, a good-natured 23-year-old who is just finding his feet as a foodie, aspiring chef and food influencer.
Victoria hasn’t liked any of Nicola’s Instagram posts since May 26, when she offered her online approval of a Dior campaign posted by the model (pictured)
Brooklyn and Nicola started dating in October 2019. They made their public debut with a date in Los Angeles in January 2020. Both have said that their bond was immediate and intense, and they started discussing marriage almost from the first meeting.
She was the guest of honour at a £115,000 party in the Cotswolds to celebrate Brooklyn’s 21st birthday and was filmed grooving to Gloria Gaynor’s hit I Will Survive with Victoria Beckham. When the engagement was announced in 2020, all the signs were that both families were approaching the union with excitement.
Nicola posed in a billowing canary yellow Victoria Beckham dress, and Victoria wrote on Instagram: ‘The MOST exciting news!! We could not be happier.
‘Wishing you so much love and a lifetime of happiness. We all love you both so much x.’
Friends said Victoria believed Nicola was good for her son and had helped him to grow up after some years of meandering, partying and drama. She credited her with ‘calming down’ Brooklyn.
She and David had feared that their young man was getting a reputation as ‘the next Calum Best’ due to his prolific womanising.
Having tried a football career, like his father, and a modelling career, like his mother, and then grown tired of a career as a photographer, which was being aided by his mother’s contacts, could it be a case of ‘be careful what you wish for’ as Victoria and David watch their son being taken under the wing of the powerful Peltz family?
In his wedding speech, Nicola’s brother Brad, who was her ‘man of honour’, told guests that from this moment on Brooklyn would be expected to put his wife first.
However Posh has failed to like several milestone posts, including images of Brooklyn and Nicola’s honeymoon
‘Rule number one: Happy wife, happy life,’ he said. ‘Rule number two: Don’t f*** up rule number one,’ he said, again driving home the ‘Peltzs first’ rhetoric.
David Beckham made a long speech on the eve of the wedding, chiefly about how much the family adore their son Brooklyn. Apparently he was quite tearful — he’s sweetly sentimental where family are concerned.
Meanwhile, Nicola’s father Nelson made a dry-eyed speech on the wedding day and spoke about his pride in the young couple’s philanthropic ambitions.
His wife Claudia is a titanium blonde who has had eight children and runs his own charitable foundation, in which Peltz takes pride.
He also gave Brooklyn a splashy ‘watch chain’ of diamonds which the youngster wore with his tuxedo. The influence of business titan Nelson Peltz is considerable, and Nicola told Tatler magazine that Brooklyn now loves to take career advice from her father.
Nor did the model like Posh’s posts shared in honour of Harper’s 11th birthday (left) or her 29th Vogue cover (right)
Nicola has also failed to interact with several major posts shared by Victoria – including this image that the designer uploaded in celebration of her 25th wedding anniversary with David
‘Brooklyn is getting into very exciting things with his shows and also business things and it’s really sweet. I watch him call my dad and say, ‘What do you think about this?’ I love watching him learn from my dad,’ she said.
Brooklyn, whose career has got off to a slightly meandering start, surely has much to learn from Nelson Peltz. He is a self-made man with a fearsome reputation as a tough-minded corporate raider.
Worth £1.3 billion (comfortably dwarfing David and Victoria’s £370 million fortune) he is a university dropout who built his family’s frozen food business in Brooklyn into the largest distributor in the North East.
From there he assembled the biggest packaging company in the world, Triangle Industries, which was sold in 1989 — netting him around $840 million.
He has, in his time, bought the iced tea brand Snapple and the burger chain Wendy’s, ducked out of a deal to buy Dunkin Donuts, and made inroads into the megalith Heinz.
It’s surely significant that Brooklyn’s one suggestion for the wedding was an elegant nod to his new father in law — he suggested that the guests should enjoy a late night feast from a Wendy’s van on the night — perhaps the best business decision of his career so far.
Initially it was said that David felt that, at 23, Brooklyn was too young to get married, but that Victoria was all for a match and thought that Nicola had ‘been the making’ of her son.
But the question now is: have they come to regret it?
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