Famous yet unknown: Nicola Peltz, Brooklyn’s wife and the center of the Beckham family rift

The rift between Brooklyn Beckham and the rest of his famous family had been obvious for months. They hadn’t put it into words, but their actions spoke volumes. The eldest of David and Victoria Beckham’s four children did not attend his father’s 50th birthday celebration last May, nor his official knighthood ceremony in November. The 26-year-old’s absence from all major family gatherings — and the family’s absence at his vow renewal last August — had long signaled that something was amiss. Yet his parents continued to smile publicly as if the apparently perfect Beckham lineage remained intact, as if there had always been five of them, not six.

Or seven, because at the center of it all is Nicola Peltz, Brooklyn’s wife since 2022, who has been singled out in the media and on social networks as the source and trigger of this silent family feud. But Brooklyn finally broke the silence last Monday. “I do not want to reconcile with my family,” he declared in an explosive message on Instagram Stories, where he finally explained the reasons behind his fallout with the Beckhams. The unwitting protagonist of the rift is Nicola, although she has never needed to be associated with the Beckham surname; the couple has even adopted the combined name Peltz-Beckham.

“My parents have been trying endlessly to ruin my relationship since before my wedding, and it hasn’t stopped,” Brooklyn warned in his post.

The message was full of references to his wife and how poorly his parents have treated her. He claimed they sabotaged their wedding or preventing her from attending the former footballer’s birthday. Some of his accusations included: “The night before our wedding, members of my family told me that Nicola ‘was not blood’ and ‘not family’”; “My wife has been consistently disrespected by my family, no matter how hard we’ve tried to come together as one”; and “The narrative that my wife controls me is completely backwards. I have been controlled by my parents for most of my life.”

While these unexpected revelations from Brooklyn Beckham set social media ablaze and have since dominated countless headlines worldwide, what affected Peltz at that moment was the death of Italian fashion designer Valentino. At the very same time Brooklyn was opening up in his Stories, she was using hers to pay tribute with three photos to the Italian designer who made her wedding dress, as if none of the other drama concerned her — showing a discretion that hasn’t stopped the world from speculating about her life.

Nicola Peltz is famous and unknown at the same time. It’s impossible to avoid being famous when you marry the eldest son of one of the most high-profile couples in the world, owners of an empire estimated at over £500 million (around $689 million), according to The Sunday Times. Yet her family is even wealthier. Nicola is the daughter of Nelson Peltz, a U.S. investor with an estimated fortune of $1.6 billion, according to Forbes. David and Victoria Beckham’s daughter-in-law is the sixth of eight children that Peltz has had with his current wife, former model Claudia Heffner. The family is completed by two children from his previous marriage to Cynthia Abrams, daughter of the co-founder of Emerson Radio Corporation.

“My parents have been together more than 40 years,” she told Cosmopolitan in 2023. “They still act like young kids in love. Literally, they’re always making out [...] I would never settle for anything other than that.”

The U.S. actress and model, who made her debut as a writer and director in 2024 with the indie film Lola — in which she plays a young woman trying to get her brother out of a toxic household — has fulfilled her relationship aspirations with Brooklyn, following brief relationships with Justin Bieber and Anwar Hadid, the younger brother of models Bella and Gigi. Professionally, things have also been going well for her: it was recently announced that she will join the cast of the film Prima. “It still feels surreal that my wildest dreams have come true,” she celebrated on Instagram when sharing the news. She also starred in the thriller Pretty Ugly, currently in post-production, in which she plays a young woman obsessed with appearance and social media.

However, the busier Peltz becomes, the fewer interviews she gives. Perhaps because, ever since she began dating Brooklyn Beckham in 2020, nearly all the headlines have focused on her partner — and especially on her mother-in-law.

“I’ve said this so many times: There’s no feud [with Victoria]. I don’t know. No one ever wants to write the nice things. It’s really weird, actually, whether it’s my life or someone else’s life or whatever, when you know the truth and then you read something totally wrong,” she told Cosmopolitan.

“It’s not a feud! Why do they say feud? No family is perfect,” she defended in The Times in 2022, when her decision not to wear a Victoria Beckham dress at her wedding was interpreted as a slight against the former Spice Girl.

At that time, Peltz explained that both of them had been very busy and hadn’t had time to perfect the dress. Brooklyn, however, now places full blame on his mother: “My mum cancelled making Nicola’s dress in the eleventh hour despite how excited she was to wear her design, forcing her to urgently find a new dress.”

After the controversial wedding in April 2022 at the Peltz family estate in Palm Beach, the Peltz-Beckham couple has distanced themselves from the groom’s family not only symbolically but also physically. While the rest of the Beckhams have their exclusive main residence in London, they chose to settle in a spectacular mansion — though smaller than the 27-room house where Nicola grew up — in Beverly Hills, some 6,000 miles away.

Both share glimpses of their idyllic daily life in California on their respective Instagram profiles, where there haven’t been any posts including the Beckhams for some time. Nicola deleted all posts featuring them at the beginning of January, and on Brooklyn’s profile you have to scroll back to December 2024 to find a photo with them. But there is plenty of content Of Brooklyn smiling happily with the Peltz family. “I’m so grateful for my boys,” Nicola posted on January 3 alongside a photo with her husband and her brother Bradley, a professional ice hockey player.

Brooklyn describes himself on social media as an entrepreneur, after founding the hot sauce brand Cloud23 in 2024; Nicola, in addition to her work in the film industry, highlights her role as a “dog activist.” In 2022, she helped found Yogi’s House, a canine shelter focused on rescuing dogs at immediate risk of euthanasia, a project that earned her a PETA award that same year.

However, according to Brooklyn’s post, even his wife’s harmless animal activism has sparked family conflict. “We’ve gone out of our way for years to show up and support at every fashion show, every party, and every press activity to show “our perfect family!” But the one time my wife asked for my mum’s support to save displaced dogs during the LA fires, my mum refused," he said in the statement.

The statement from the eldest Beckham son has already inspired countless news articles, analyses, and opinion pieces, particularly in British media. “I know how Brooklyn Beckham feels. My mum sabotaged my wedding too” is the headline a Telegraph opinion article by an anonymous author. The Daily Mail even launched a poll asking readers whether they are on Team Brooklyn or on the side of the rest of the family. So far, the Beckhams are winning. The Times conducted an in-depth analysis of how Brooklyn’s revelations affect the Beckham brand, though it was Peltz and her husband who, back in June, had to hire publicist and crisis manager Matthew Hiltzik — Johnny Depp was his client — to handle the fallout from their family issues.

According to the Daily Mail, Hiltzik clashed with the couple days before the explosive statement, frustrated by their refusal to follow his advice to stay out of the drama. Brooklyn, of course, did not follow it. Nicola, on the other hand, has not fueled the feud and shows no sign of doing so, following in her in-laws’ footsteps, even as the press searches for double meanings in every word they say or post.

While Brooklyn’s accusations that his mother “danced very inappropriately” at his wedding have sparked a flood of memes online, Victoria Beckham has remained silent. As has her daughter-in-law. Because despite all the talk of their differences, they have a lot in common. In their lives, enigmatic personalities, and even the subtle sexism that comes up in discussions of their supposed feud, the two resemble each other more than either would probably like to admit.

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