David Beckham’s social media following has rocketed since the release of a Netflix documentary about his life, according to analysis.
The series from the Academy award-winning director Fisher Stevens, also famous for playing the PR sleazeball Hugo in Succession, explores the former England captain’s career and private life in four hour-long episodes. Topics include his relationship with the former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson and his 24-year marriage to his wife, Victoria Beckham.
The documentary has boosted the number of fans following the former footballer turned club owner, with the number increasing by almost half a million since the trailer for Beckham was released, according to analysis of Social Blade data by Casino Alpha.
Released on Wednesday, the documentary charts Beckham’s rise from a talented east London schoolboy to the best-known football player in the world, and includes interviews with his wife and family as well as his former teammates Gary Neville, Eric Cantona and Rio Ferdinand.
It explores the nadir of Beckham’s career, when he was sent off during England’s 1998 World Cup match against Argentina, the abuse he and his family suffered as a result, and his depression that ensued.
“Wherever I went, I got abused every day,” he said. “To walk down the street and see people look at you a certain way, spit at you, abuse you, come up to your face and say some of the things that they said, that’s difficult. I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t sleeping, I was a mess.”
In the documentary Posh and Becks – as they became known after they started dating when she was part of the Spice Girls and he was a rising star at Manchester United – speak for the first time about the aftermath of Beckham’s alleged affair with Rebecca Loos, then Beckham’s assistant, in 2003, although they are vague on the specifics.
“Up until Madrid sometimes it felt like us against everybody else but we were together, we were connected, we had each other,” says Victoria Beckham. “But when we were in Spain, it didn’t really feel like we had each other either. And that’s sad. I can’t even begin to tell you how hard it was. And how it affected me.”
Beckham describes being lost after his transfer to Madrid, without his family and away from the club he had joined as a teenager. In the aftermath of newspaper reports about his alleged infidelity he said it felt like the couple were “drowning”.
“I don’t know how we got through it, in all honestly. Victoria is everything to me, to see her hurt was incredibly difficult, but we’re fighters and at that time we needed to fight for each other, we needed to fight for our family.”