VICTORIA Beckham has revealed all about her celeb feuds, which included a “rude” meeting with Donatella Versace and also being branded “a b*****” on live TV.
In her Netflix documentary, which dropped today, Victoria, 51, spilled the beans on life in the spotlight and the struggles she has overcome with fellow stars.
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In the doc, Victoria revealed how over the years she has had several encounters with fellow stars that have left her disgruntled.
She talked candidly about how hard she found it trying to relaunch herself as a fashion designer after being a Spice Girl.
Victoria even admitted she was seen as a bit of “laughing stock” during this time.
Speaking on the three-part limited series, she recalled an encounter with Donatella Versace in 1997.
READ MORE ON VICTORIA BECKHAM
She revealed how she was invited by the fashion power house over to Milan on a private jet to go to her first runway show.
Before going to the show, Victoria was invited to pick out a dress from a Versace shop to wear to the prestigious event.
Back then, Posh was known for always wearing a little black dress so she went for this.
However, despite not being a fashion designer at that time, she set about making alterations to it, asking the store staff to tighten the waist, shorten the hemline and take off the sleeves.
“I basically redesigned the whole dress,” Victoria said. “I can’t believe I did that. So rude!”
This in turn did NOT go down well with Donatella.
‘You shouldn’t do it. That’s how I feel,” the fashion designer said on the Netflix doc.
‘Yeah, and I thought “how does she dare?”
However, Donatella, who is now good friends with Victoria, added: “Then I realised it was better on her the way she did it. She knows her body.”
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BEING CALLED A ‘B***H’
Victoria also revealed on the Netflix doc how art critic Brian Sewell bluntly branded her a ‘b***h’ on TV – while at the same time praising her husband David Beckham .
Speaking on Alan Titchmarsh’s show in 2009, Brian said: “Beckham is wonderful in what he does; off the field he does all sorts of good works.
“Madame Beckham comes along, wearing virtually nothing, and steals the photographs, steals the occasion – and she’s just a common little b***h.”
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MEL B FALL OUT
As she tried to make it in the world of fashion, Victoria tried to distance herself from her Posh Spice alter-ego.
However, in 2008 she was asked to go back out on the road with the Spice Girls.
She explained: “When I was working with (fashion designer) Roland Mouret the other Spice Girls told me they wanted to go on tour…
“David was like, ‘it’s really good for the kids to see you do this’, he mum-guilted me!”
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Victoria agreed to the reunion tour and confessed: “I hadn’t been Posh Spice for such a long time. It was good to be back with them.”
But in 2019, when she was asked again to do it, Victoria said “no” – something that did not go down well with Mel B.
Victoria said she was “hurt” by one of Scary Spice’s comments, after she said she didn’t want to do the tour.
“It upset me not too long ago actually – Melanie B said to me ‘don’t forget where you’ve come from’,” Victoria told the doc.
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She insisted: “I have never forgotten where I’ve come from. I have never forgotten that Posh Spice is the reason that I’m sitting here now.
“She might have been grumpy but she was actually great.
“It was good to celebrate the Spice Girls but it was during that [2008] tour that I realised I didn’t belong on stage. It had been fun but it wasn’t what I loved anymore.”
SECRET EATING DISORDER
In the doc, brave Victoria also opened up about a crippling eating disorder that she kept secret after leaving the Spice Girls.
She admitted that she starved herself in an effort to stay thin.
She candidly revealed how she became “very good at lying” after losing control of what was being said about her.
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“It’s been a lot, and that’s hard. I had no control over what was being written about me, the pictures being taken, and I suppose I wanted to control that,” Victoria revealed in an episode entitled Kill The Wag
“I could control it with the clothing, I could control my weight and I was controlling it in an extremely unhealthy way.
“When you have an eating disorder you become very good at lying and I was never honest about it with my parents.
“I never talked about it publicly. It really affects you when you’re being told constantly that you’re not good enough and I suppose that’s been with me my whole life.”
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LAUNCH NIGHT
Netflix’s Victoria Beckham was premiered at the Curzon cinema in Mayfair, central London this week.
Victoria and David were joined by kids Romeo, Harper, Cruz and his girlfriend Jackie Apostel.
Although Brooklyn was not there, Posh held out an olive branch by mentioning him in her speech.
David’s mum, Sandra, and sister Joanne were also present along with the Beckhams’ celebrity pals Tilly and Tana Ramsay.
Three of Victoria’s Spice Girls pals turned up — Ginger Spice Geri Horner, Sporty Spice Mel C and Baby Spice Emma Bunton.
Before the screening Victoria stood on stage and said: “I’d like to thank the Spice Girls — Geri, Emma, Melanie and Melanie. I love you so much and thank you so much.
“My children, Brooklyn, Romeo, Cruz, Harper and David — oh, my God, he’s not a child. I was doing so well without cards as well.
“It’s taken me this process to really be proud of what I’ve achieved and to realise finally that I am enough.”
- Victoria Beckham is available to stream on Netflix now
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‘BRILLIANTLY CANDID’
By Rod McPhee
WHEN Victoria Beckham’s business was at the height of its extravagant spending she admitted some of her most ostentatious requests included “flying chairs from one side of the world to the other.”
She also spent £70,000 a year on plants for her office – then paid someone £15,000 a year to water them.
Small wonder, she admits, the company was struggling financially. But she confesses in her new documentary that she’d naively gone from the ostentatious world of entertainment to the more business-minded world of fashion.
“I didn’t realise it at the time, but the waste was mind-blowing.” she says in the Netflix three-parter, out now. “I hear it now and I’m horrified but I allowed that to happen.”
She is nothing if not candid in the mini-series, but doesn’t stop there. She goes on to admit, seemingly, that already being a Spice Girl married to a famous footballer meant she was unwittingly at a disadvantage.
She said: “Part of the problem was people were really afraid to tell me ‘No’. I think probably there’s a power, if I’m being honest, the power of celebrity. People thought that I wasn’t used to hearing ‘No’.
“I’ll hold my hands up and hold myself accountable for things that I’ve done, that I should have done, and could have done differently. and I was in debt – there was a lot I had to change.”
If ever you needed definitive proof that Victoria Beckham is as sharp as razor, then this documentary is it.
She could have delivered a bog standard warts and all autobiography for Netflix, or a no holds barred snapshot of her life as a fashion designer.
Instead she’s carefully curated both elements and woven them into this version of events.
It shows how she went from a Spice Girl to the darling of the catwalk and, of course, the head of one of Britain’s most famous families with husband David.
Here she also admits to her own flaws, to the moments when she lost her way and picked herself back up when she inevitably faltered.
But despite now being the successful global fashion icon that is Victoria Beckham, she does it without seeming pious. Instead she oozes genuine humility and sense of humour that proves a huge part of her is still Posh Spice.