A New Netflix Docuseries Gives Victoria Beckham a Much Deserved Reassessment

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Over the past ten years, there’s been a surge of movies and shows revisiting how the media treated famous women in the 90s and 2000s, offering new perspectives on their experiences. For example, a 2019 documentary series produced by Jordan Peele re-examined the case of Lorena Bobbitt, portraying her as a potential victim of abuse. Monica Lewinsky’s story was dramatized in the 2021 series *Impeachment: American Crime Story*, and that same year, the *New York Times* documentary *Framing Britney Spears* played a key role in ending the 13-year conservatorship that controlled her life. Britney Spears then shared her own account in her 2023 memoir, *The Woman in Me*. This, along with similar memoirs from other women who were often unfairly criticized – like Jessica Simpson, Pamela Anderson, and Paris Hilton – has led many to consider how we all contributed to their struggles.

A new documentary on Netflix, simply titled *Victoria Beckham*, is taking a fresh look at the life of the former Spice Girl. While she’s now famous as a fashion designer, the series explores her career shift, focusing on the lead-up to her Spring/Summer 2025 show at Paris Fashion Week. It mixes current footage with older clips and interviews featuring Victoria, her husband David, and people who know them well. For those unfamiliar with the Spice Girls’ heyday, Victoria – known as “Posh Spice” – often came across as reserved and less outgoing compared to her bandmates Melanie Brown (“Scary Spice”), Melanie Chisholm (“Sporty Spice”), Geri Halliwell-Horner (“Ginger Spice”), and Emma Bunton (“Baby Spice”). She also admits in the documentary that she wasn’t the strongest singer in the group, saying, “I’d be lying if I said I was the best singer or dancer.”

Following the Spice Girls’ split in 1998, Victoria Beckham faced relentless criticism from the tabloids, who scrutinized everything she did and how she looked. She recalls being labeled with hurtful nicknames like “Porky Posh” and “Skinny Posh,” which worsened an eating disorder that began when a dance teacher told her she was overweight as a child. Her attempt at a solo music career in 2000 wasn’t successful, and she increasingly became known as David Beckham’s wife. The couple married in 1999 after a two-year relationship, and Victoria moved to Manchester, where David played soccer.

She explains that she quickly went from one stage of her life to another – becoming a wife and moving to a flat in Manchester. She didn’t know many people there and was far from her family, which she found very challenging.

The new docuseries about Victoria Beckham doesn’t cover the intense media scrutiny the family faced in 2004 when rumors surfaced about David Beckham’s alleged affair with his assistant, Rebecca Loos, nor the subsequent cheating allegations. David Beckham briefly mentioned the scandal in his own 2023 Netflix documentary. He said it felt like a new accusation every day. The series also avoids discussing current reports of a family disagreement. While all of Victoria and David’s children appear in the documentary except for their eldest, Brooklyn, this omission seems to be a common practice in celebrity documentaries, where filmmakers often prioritize maintaining a good relationship with their subject.

The show follows Victoria Beckham’s life, detailing her moves with David from Manchester United to Real Madrid and then to LA Galaxy – a period previously shown in the 2007 reality series *Victoria Beckham: Coming to America*. It explores how she felt she lost sight of who she was as an individual. Eva Longoria, a longtime friend and former wife of a professional athlete herself (married to Tony Parker from 2007-2011), explains, “People would only know her as someone’s wife. It made you wonder, what about her own identity?”

Fashion has always been important to Victoria, and she rediscovered her passion for it. As a child, she loved dressing up for performances, and she admits that because she was the most interested in fashion among the Spice Girls, the majority of their clothing budget went towards her dresses, like her “little Gucci dresses.” The documentary series includes interviews with Tom Ford, who was the head designer at Gucci then, and Donatella Versace. Versace recalls feeling initially offended when Beckham altered a Versace dress she’d loaned her, thinking, “How does she dare?” But she quickly realized Beckham had actually improved the dress.

It felt inevitable that Victoria Beckham would eventually enter the fashion world. Despite being seen as the most conservative member of the Spice Girls due to her love of designer brands, she initially faced criticism from the fashion industry. As Anna Wintour explains in the documentary, “It’s easy to be snobbish in fashion.”

The criticism of her fashion sense started all over again, largely focusing on her connections to the men in her life. People pointed to her mentorship with designer Roland Mouret as she started her own brand, and to her husband’s financial support when her business struggled in 2017 and 2018. She recalls the criticism implying, “It must be a man helping her, not her own talent.” Eventually, she realized she needed to move past the image people had of her – the snobby pop star, the superficial ‘WAG’ (wife and girlfriend of a footballer), and even the perpetually unhappy person. She actually has a good sense of humor, and needed to let that show.

She believes her work speaks for itself, and she doesn’t need to seek attention. Even with the success of her Victoria Beckham fashion brand – which has seen consistent growth and over £100 million in yearly sales – the documentary shows her often wearing simple, comfortable clothes. It’s a far cry from the glamorous ‘Posh Spice’ image she once projected.

It’s understandable why some viewers might have trouble sympathizing with Victoria Beckham in the series. The clip of her mentioning her family’s Rolls Royce when she was a child went viral, and that image can be hard to reconcile with struggles. However, even privileged people face difficulties, and Beckham explains that constant criticism and feeling inadequate can be deeply painful.

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2025-10-10 00:06