(CNN)– David Beckham, one of the most famous people in the world, has a very familiar story: former captain of the England football team, married to a Spice Girl and now owner of Inter Miami, a major league soccer club.
The “Beckham brand” took the world by storm in the 1990s and 2000s, giving David and Victoria Beckham the kind of international fame that was only available to those who pushed the boundaries of their celebrity careers and became pop culture icons of their era.
It may seem impossible to find out more about Beckham, but there are several revelations in the Netflix documentary of the same name, released Wednesday and directed by “Succession” star Fisher Stevens, which paints a complex portrait of the soccer star.
Victoria Beckham “doesn’t like football”
Although they were already individually famous, the marriage between ‘Posh and Becks’ catapulted them both into a different sphere of celebrity, uniting the worlds of football, pop culture, music and later fashion.
But it turns out Victoria Beckham “doesn’t like football” and never will, she says in the documentary, despite marrying one of the sport’s most famous figures.
They both remember their first meeting and the early days of their budding relationship, when they met in parking lots and kissed in cars to keep it a secret. “It’s less shabby than it looks,” jokes Victoria.
Victoria gave her future husband her number, which was on a plane ticket, after attending a Manchester United game with fellow Spice Girls Mel C.
Victoria and David Beckham address infidelity allegations
But the picture of a happy marriage collapsed in April 2004 when the defunct British newspaper News of the World published allegations that Beckham had had an affair after moving to Real Madrid.
Although the couple doesn’t directly address the substance of the allegations in the documentary, they both talk about the impact they had on their marriage, as well as the media coverage.
David and Victoria Beckham in April 2004. Photo credit: Bruno Vincent/Getty Images
“I honestly don’t know how we got through it,” Beckham says hesitantly in the documentary. “The win means everything to me. Seeing her hurt was incredibly difficult…what we had was worth fighting for.”
For her part, Victoria says that “it was the hardest time” of her marriage because “I felt like the world was against us… and we were against each other.”
Beckham’s depression after the red card at the 1998 World Cup
For all the magical moments Beckham enjoyed on the football pitch, there was one incident that threatened to overshadow his career: when he received a red card in England’s round of 16 match against Argentina at the 1998 World Cup for hitting Diego Simeone foot had touched.
England lost the game on penalties and were eliminated from the World Cup, sparking a wave of abuse against Beckham.
It was “public harassment on another level”, Victoria said, claiming it had left her husband “clinically depressed” and “broken”.
David Gardner, Beckham’s friend and partner, said he remembered people spitting and spitting on the footballer in the street or banging on the windows of their cars at traffic lights.
Beckham received a red card in England’s round of 16 match at the 1998 World Cup. Photo credit: Colorsport/Shutterstock
Beckham said that the abuse during that time made him feel “very vulnerable and alone” but that he finds it “hard to talk about what I went through because it was so extreme… the whole country hated me.” .”
He added that he still regrets the red card 25 years later.
David Beckham is dedicated to beekeeping
After retiring from football, Beckham became a co-owner of Inter Miami and found other ways to spend his time, such as beekeeping and cooking.
The series begins with him practicing beekeeping, collecting honey from a hive that flows into an old jam jar. Beckham jokes that it should be called “Golden Bees”, an obvious reference to his old nickname “Golden Balls”, while his wife says with a wry smile that she thinks it should be called “DB Sticky Stuff”. Lego is another of his hobbies, he tells the documentary’s director, Fisher Stevens.
Coming full circle, the four-part documentary ends with him cooking with his family in a conservatory, a place where he “fools around” on Saturdays and spends the day grilling while watching football on his iPad.
The star’s photo shoot during the birth of Victoria
At times, professional commitments influenced important moments in Beckham’s family life. One example is when he had to tell his wife that the birth of his third child, Cruz, would coincide with his photo session with pop icons Beyoncé and Jennifer Lopez.
“I thought… seriously, I’m going to explode. I’m on bed rest. Are you kidding me?” says Victoria 18 years later in the documentary. “You have a damn photo shoot with Jennifer Lopez, who is beautiful and not expecting a child yet. So they did the C-section and I remember lying there feeling, shall we say, not at my best.”
The Beckhams took photos with their four children. Photo credit: Anthony Harvey/Shutterstock
On the front pages of the newspapers, Victoria recalls, there was a photo of Beckham standing between Beyoncé and Lopez with the headline “What would Posh say?”
“Let me tell you what Posh would say,” he says in the documentary. “Posh was angry.”