I can’t exactly call the Beckham feud Roman in its nature – there is not enough real stabbing, and so far no actual poisoning to justify that. But there are familiar contours.
Ancient Rome is au courant these days. So much so that last year a book first published in 121 AD found itself on the bestseller charts in Britain – Suetonius’s Lives of the Twelve Caesars. It is a collection of biographies of the first 11 emperors of Rome, with the “main” Caesar himself making up the dozen. I am going to make a lofty case for this most unusual of success stories.
The political moment is fixated on that distant past. Donald Trump is regularly compared to Nero, what with all the immorality and gold. Pop-academics labour to prove the same forces that saw the decline-then-fall of the Roman Empire are alive in the 21st century – moral depravity at the top of society, hubristic territorial expansion (very topical), waves of mass migration. In Hollywood, Paul Mescal is a gladiator. When it comes to the Lives of the Twelve Caesars, perhaps there is appeal in the particular story: the old regime collapses (the Republic), and a new one is found (the Empire).
But this is not why Suetonius was a bestseller last year. I suppose it is somewhat natural to excavate the past for modern morality plays, to hope ancient analogies will make sense of present conditions. That is a footnote to the enduring, timeless appeal of Suetonius as writer. But grand political theory and gritty historiography will always be overshadowed by the unstoppable force of gossip – even better when it concerns the scandalous lives of the elite. And that is what Lives of the Caesars offers: the inside track on imperial sexual proclivities, the embarrassing buffoonery of the otherwise untouchable men, details no one would want printed about them at any point in the 2,000 years hence.
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Take that bombshell Instagram post from Brooklyn Peltz Beckham – son of David and Victoria, wife to billionaire-scion Nicola Peltz, brother to the other-engagingly-named siblings Romeo, Harper and Cruz. If the global response to the crisis triggered by Brooklyn’s post tells us anything, it is that those scandalous lives of the elite compel us now as much as they ever have done. And if you wanted proof of my thesis that hearsay and tittle-tattle always trump (oops) politics, then I’ll tell you this: at the time of writing David Beckham’s face is currently the leading image on major international news websites. And isn’t Trump about to invade Greenland?
[ Brooklyn Peltz Beckham says he does not want to reconcile with his familyOpens in new window ]
If you haven’t followed, please afford me the pleasure of recounting it to you. Not all has been well for some time now between the Beckhams and Brooklyn. Tabloids have been drip fed stories of feuds between wife Nicola and mother-in-law Victoria (Posh Spice). The widening rift between Brooklyn and the rest of his family has played out in some very modern ways: blocking each other on social media and cryptic Instagram posts. In other words, everything your 15-year-old daughter might understand.
And then things went nuclear when Brooklyn wrote on Instagram that he no longer wanted to be reconciled with his family; that he was not being controlled by his wife (lady doth protest etc); and that he was ready to break his silence against the rest of the Beckhams. On his charge sheet? His mother pulled out of making his wife’s wedding dress at the 11th hour; Victoria danced “on” him inappropriately during what should have been his first wedding dance with his wife; and that his mother (her again) refused to “save displaced dogs” after the LA wild fires of last year.
And here we have Brooklyn displaying a classic Suetonian instinct: an inside track to lives otherwise totally inaccessible to us; buffoonery, dare I say; unhappy families; Schadenfreude; detail; the endlessly fashionable mother-in-law vs wife dynamic; access. Brooklyn Peltz Beckham’s Instagram post will enter the cultural lexicon and I predict it will stay there for a very long time. This is not a fate that the beleaguered historiographer could ever expect. Gossip wins, always.
Donald Trump knows this too. This week he leaked the private correspondence of Emmanuel Macron and Nato secretary general Mark Rutte, while messages with Norwegian prime minister Jonas Støre were also made public. The better part of me is white-knuckled and riven with anxiety over the president’s territorial rapaciousness. The rest of me? Fascinated to learn these men communicate over what looks like WhatsApp instead of iMessage, that Støre has a charming manner over text, that Macron opened his with “My friend”. I will read the essays in the Atlantic, the New York Times or Foreign Affairs about Greenland. I have followed Derek Scally closely as he reported from there for The Irish Times. It will all be good for me. But what I will mostly remember is that Macron didn’t bother to cap-up “US” in his sign off.
Brooklyn Beckham has had a hard time finding his professional feet – his stint as a chef went badly, his forays into photography somehow even worse. But on display this week was an enviable skill. Want to make a real impact? Pull back the curtain, and whisper: “psst, did you hear that…?”
