Moment that left Nicola Peltz 'in tears' and triggered Brooklyn Beckham to 'go nuclear'... what he now calls parents instead of 'mum and dad'... and who HELPED him write statement

For months he had been told to take the high road. But last week, Brooklyn Beckham finally snapped.

The eldest son of David and Victoria Beckham put pen to paper in what friends have now described as a 'wild' move to defend his wife Nicola Peltz, the daughter of billionaires Nelson and Claudia Peltz.

And defend his wife he did with an explosive polemic shared to his Instagram on Monday, in which he attacked his 'performative' parents, accusing them of spreading 'countless lies' and 'trying endlessly to ruin my relationship since before my wedding' in April 2022.

Despite many years relentless speculation from the public about his estrangement from Victoria, 51, and David, 50, Brooklyn largely managed to keep quiet. And it is understood that 26-year-old's patience only really started to wane in December.

An Instagram post sharing pictures from Christmas spent at his in-law's $95 million Palm Beach mansion, which was also shared to 31-year-old Nicola's account, attracted particularly vitriolic comments. 

'You married a witch,' spat one follower. 'That's what you betrayed your family for?' another asked, while many of the couple's combined following of 19 million questioned why Brooklyn wasn't celebrating with his own family, who were more than 4,000 miles away at their home in the Cotswolds.

'Nicola has been attacked on social media, and it got worse around Christmas,' an insider told the Daily Mail. 'Brooklyn felt Nicola was being targeted unfairly. She was in tears over Christmas.'

And so, with a deafening silence from his parents and with the criticism of Nicola mounting from online troll, Brooklyn finally took matters into his own hands last week. 

The Daily Mail has been told he became 'sick' of the untruths about him, his relationship with Nicola and his parents, who he felt should have stepped in to stop the public backlash. Those close to him also felt the same, it is understood.

Brooklyn had been told repeatedly to take the high road and not 'stoop' to the same level as his family, but then he reached a breaking point.

So, he crafted his statement, which Nicola reportedly helped to construct. A final version was likely signed off by their legal team. It is said to have been written in a matter of days.

'Nicola is part of it, for sure,' said a second insider. 'She definitely supports him in this. She is not the one who made the decision [to share the statement]. He did. She didn't tell him to do it. He decided to. So, you really can't blame her. This was something between him and them, and he decided it was time to take the nuclear option.'

In the days leading up to hitting send on the exhaustive statement, which was spread across six Instagram 'stories' and detailed his version of events for the first time, the second insider said Brooklyn had told friends he now 'doesn't even refer to [David and Victoria] as parents'.

'He calls them by their first names now,' the insider added. 'He doesn't think estrangement is a bad thing at all. He sees it as him setting boundaries, taking care of himself, watching out for his own mental health. I know he knows it hurts them, but I don't think he really cares right about now.'

But it must be a hard pill to swallow for the photographer-turned-cook who has spent years gushing over his doting parents, once hailing them 'the best mum and dad ever,' and proudly declaring he will one day make a 'great dad' because of the family values they instilled in him.

It is no secret that relations started to sour in the run-up to Brooklyn's extravagant $3.5 million wedding, which was held at Nicola's billionaire father Nelson's estate in Palm Beach, Florida, in April 2022.

The story went that the actress had shunned a dress made by her mother-in-law in favor of a Valentino gown.

But just five months after the wedding, Nicola told Grazia USA that despite 'planning' to wear a gown designed by Victoria and being 'truly so excited to be able to wear a design that my future mother-in-law created', she then 'didn't hear anything' from Victoria who eventually said her 'atelier couldn't make it'.

According to Brooklyn's version of events detailed on Monday, Victoria 'cancelled making Nicola's dress in the eleventh hour despite how excited she was to wear her design.' 

However, his recollection is seemingly at odds with that of Nicola's stylist Leslie Fremar who previously told Vogue that the Valentino dress was a result of a 'year's worth' of conversations with the brand.

Since the wedding, the Beckhams and Peltzes have not reunited, and Nicola has rarely been pictured with David and Victoria, or her husband's three younger siblings Romeo, 23, Cruz, 20, and Harper, 14. In December, Cruz said Brooklyn had 'blocked' the whole family on social media.

Instead, Brooklyn has fully assimilated himself with his in-laws, growing increasingly close to Nicola's brothers and even skipping his own family gatherings for quality time with his new relatives.

The growing chasm was felt most viscerally when Brooklyn was absent from David's multiple 50th birthday celebrations in the Cotswolds, London and Bordeaux last year, despite having flown to the UK for the occasion.

Explaining what happened on Monday, Brooklyn claimed he and Nicola were 'rejected for a week as we waited in our hotel room trying to plan quality time with [David].' 

'He refused all of our attempts,' Brooklyn added, saying that the couple were allegedly told to only show up 'at his big birthday party with a hundred guests and cameras at every corner'.

Brooklyn also claimed his father 'finally agreed to see' him, but only 'under the condition that Nicola wasn't invited'.

Brooklyn was last pictured with his family on Boxing Day 2024 when they spent Christmas in Miami. Since then, he has failed to publicly acknowledge his parents' birthdays, Mother's Day and Father's Day and even David's knighthood in November last year.

But no doubt the real sucker punch for his doting parents was when he failed to invite them to his wedding vow renewal in New York's Westchester County in August 2025.

Given Brooklyn's extraordinary statement, the decision seemed an obvious choice after he claimed Victoria 'humiliated' him on his wedding day back in 2022 when she reportedly 'hijacked' his first dance and proceeded to 'dance very inappropriately on [him] in front of everyone'.

He claims his mother also called him 'evil' for wanting to sit his paternal grandmother Sandra and his wife's 'Naunni' at the top table as neither had husbands.

As the firstborn of a former Spice Girl and an England footballer, Brooklyn's childhood played out against a backdrop of hysteria over 'Posh and Becks'. His evident discomfort was felt when the circus surrounding his famous parents was laid bare in David's 2023 Netflix series, Beckham. He was five years old when his father's alleged affair with Rebecca Loos was slapped all over the news.

Growing up, he struggled to escape his nepo baby tag as he somewhat unsuccessfully tried his hand at football, photography and modelling before adding novice chef to his resume and launching his hot sauce range, Cloud23.

Unbeknownst to his friends was just how heavy that nepotism weighed, with our insider revealing they would brush off his whining as a 'complaint of a rich boy.'

'He has said negative things about his parents before, but not to this extent,' our second insider said. 'He always complained that he was supposed to be perfect, that his parents wanted perfection, that their fans wanted perfection, but you've got to understand, that's just a complaint of a rich boy. "Oh no, my parents are too rich and too perfect and too beautiful. Boo-hoo." So, I didn't pay it much mind.

'He has always been under enormous pressure to live up to his famous parents. He was saying that for years. So, at some point, he obviously was just like "f**k it, I can't ever live up anyway, so why bother?"

'But the idea of going public is wild to me. That he would publicly say something, that's not who he has been. So that had to be really pushing him over the edge.'

Unlike his tally of failed careers, one role he has seemingly excelled in is devoted husband to actress Nicola, who so desperately wanted to be close to the Beckhams.

Much like Brooklyn's statement, another insider insisted both he and his wife – who was once branded a 'monster' and 'the worst of the worst' by her ex celebrity hair colorist Justin Anderson – had tried hard to resolve issues, which failed, they claim, because of David and Victoria.

'After many attempts by Brooklyn to set boundaries with his family and encourage honest and positive change in their relationship, he became discouraged and disheartened that they will ever be the happy and perfect family the Beckhams are determined to portray in the press,' a third insider said.

'Nicola is very close to her family and had hoped to be as close to his family. She is supportive of whatever Brooklyn wants. Nicola wants nothing more than for Victoria and David to repair the relationship with their son. Victoria and David want nothing more than to blame their short comings on their son's wife as opposed to their own performative behavior.'

The Daily Mail has contacted representatives for David, Victoria, Brooklyn and Nicola for comment.