Victoria Beckham
Victoria Caroline Beckham (born
Victoria Caroline Adams on
April 17,
1974) is an
English celebrity best known for her position in the
Spice Girls and her marriage to
footballer David Beckham. Victoria is a
pop singer,
songwriter,
fashion designer,
model and
international tabloid icon. Known also as "Posh Spice" - or, affectionately, "Posh" - a nickname given to her by the
BBC's
Top of the Pops magazine, Victoria is one of the most celebrated, photographed, criticised and gossiped about celebrities of the modern era.
Victoria Beckham was born in Princess Alexandra Hospital,
Harlow in
Essex to Anthony William Adams, an electronics engineer, and Jacqueline Doreen Cannon. She was brought up in
Goff's Oak,
Hertfordshire. She is the eldest of three children. Prior to joining the Spice Girls, Victoria trained as a dancer and had a number of modeling and dancing jobs, and had joined a band in which she was to be the lead singer, but left them in favour of the Spice Girls project. Even though she admits having sung off-key in the audition (claiming the song was in the wrong key for her but 'she can really sing') she was chosen anyway.Victoria Adams married the ex-
Manchester United and present
England and
Real Madrid footballer
David Beckham, on
July 4 1999, with whom she has three sons: Brooklyn Joseph (born
March 4 1999), Romeo James (born
September 1 2002), and Cruz David (born
February 20 2005).
Following the birth of her first child, Victoria's weight loss became a topic of much discussion in the British
tabloid press. She agreed to appear in adverts for a potato crisp brand but there were claims that she would not actually eat the crisps. She has claimed to this day that she never had an eating disorder though she says former band member
Geri Halliwell did get her dangerously addicted to dieting. She has said that her dramatic weight loss was due to
polycystic ovary syndrome, a condition that more usually causes
hirsutism,
central obesity and occasionally
masculinization.
Despite being one of the most famous celebrities in Britain, and having all her music reach the top ten (the only solo Spice to do so), Victoria Beckham's career as a solo artist is largely considered to have been a commercial failure. She is the only ex-
Spice Girl not to have had a UK number one single as a solo artist: "
Out of Your Mind" (2000) at number 2 being the closest that she came to the accolade. Her debut album reached number 10 in the UK album chart. The album featured the much talked about 'Every Part Of Me'. The song was co-written by Victoria and was dedicated to her son, Brooklyn. The track also featured Brooklyn at the start, his 'part' was an off-chance recording which took place during a break during a recording session.
Her début solo single, 'Not Such An Innocent Girl', was released in September 2001, and she faced competition from Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out Of My Head". Victoria, most likely was never going to beat Kylie, but she gave the project huge promotion and the record had an expensive and sophisticated video. During promotion however Victoria wore a 'fake' lip ring which she claimed to be 'real'. Many fans copied her only to find hers was false; this angered many fans and resulted in huge media backlash against Victoria. It has since been argued that this 'stunt' was the beginning of the end of Victoria's music career.
The second single from the album was 'A Mind Of Its Own'. This record was much slower and a more mature effort by Victoria. This record garnered Victoria some critical acclaim. Despite all acclaim and praise the record stalled at number 6 in the UK and sold only 66,000 copies.
A third single, 'I Wish', was planned to be released. The single version was due to be a remix featuring Robbie Craig. Many thought the record would turn around Victoria's fortunes, however the record was never released as Victoria 'left' her record company, 'Virgin'.
|
Single cover for "Let your Head Go/ This Groove" |
Let Your Head Go / This Groove (a
double A-side) was released in the UK in late December 2003 and reached number 3. This single was the result of a compromise with her manager
Simon Fuller, one side being a pop/dance song and the other side a song displaying strong
R&B influences which was inspired by her new mentor
Damon Dash. Disagreement between Dash and Fuller over how to manage and produce Victoria's career and music lead to the cancellation of the US release of this record, and Victoria began to work on a range of original fashions for
Rock and Republic instead, however this single proved to be both a critical and commercial breakthrough in terms of solo success. Most critics agreed that Victoria had made a good pop record and the diversity of the two records proved she was capable of more than some previously thought. The single sold over 60,000 copies and achieved considerably more than her previous work. The record was the most successful solo spice Girls single since Geri Halliwell's "It's Raining Men". A promotional CD, featuring these singles and a snippet of a cover of
Lennon and McCartney's
Come Together, was sent to the media but the full song was not released. In the spring of 2004, it was announced Victoria's next single would be the
Cathy Dennis-penned, 'My Love Is For Real'. Reports claimed the song was much more pop/dance orientated than Victoria's previous work. The single wasn't released due to Victoria's record label, Telstar, going bankrupt. She along with several other acts (including
Mis-teeq and
Craig David) had all future releases cancelled.
In July 2006, Victoria was voted to be the best dressed and most iconic woman to women in a poll compiled by More Magazine. In another poll she was voted to have the 2nd most desirable body in the world. This offers a contrasting opinion to other magazines who claim Victoria is too thin.
In 2004, her happily married image suffered when a string of women claimed to the tabloid press to have had affairs with David, including
Rebecca Loos. All were dismissed as "ludicrous", "absurd" and "unsubstantiated" by David Beckham, and the Beckhams showed a publicly united front against the allegations. However, Loos maintained that she had not fabricated the allegations, and since the Beckhams took no legal action to disprove them, they have continued to mar the image of the Beckhams as the UK's "golden couple". The British press and public, however, eventually lost interest in the story, and the Beckhams have appeared to continue life as normal. During the 2006 World Cup Victoria was seen by the press as the leading "
WAG" (as the wives and girlfriends of the England team came to be dubbed).
Despite visual evidence to the contrary, in 2003, Victoria denied rumors of breast enhancement on British TV insisting, "I'm completely natural, except for my fingernails and I have a bit of help with my hair and a bit of St. Tropez going on." A year later she told British chat show host
Michael Parkinson, "I haven't had a boob job." This was widely believed to be proven as a lie in 2005 when a court document relating to a libel case she and her husband filed revealed she did have her breasts enhanced. The file, obtained by Britain's
The People newspaper, says "That the Second Claimant (Victoria Beckham) had in fact undergone breast enhancement surgery and had lied about it on the 'Tabloid Tales' television program."
Victoria Beckham has had a well-publicized feud with
supermodel Naomi Campbell, which began when she publicly branded Campbell as "a massive cow" and a "
bitch" in 2000. Campbell later remarked that she could not understand how the former Spice Girl ever got the nickname "Posh". However, any bad blood (tabloid-induced or otherwise) between them seems to have subsided and the women have appeared to be friends, Naomi having introduced Victoria to
Damon Dash.
Victoria Beckham wrote an autobiography,
Learning to Fly. The book was the 3rd best selling non-fiction title of 2001 (total U.K. sales stand at more than 500,000 copies), and has been translated into several Asian languages, although Victoria Beckham told a Spanish journalist in 2005 "I haven't read a book in my life". That quote was partially recanted when Victoria told another interviewer she meant she had never had time to read a book "cover to cover".
Victoria is also releasing her second book on October 30th 2006. The title is: "That Extra Half an Inch" and it is going to be a "fashion bible", as the media have labelled it.
In 2004 Victoria designed a fashion line for
Rock and Republic called '
VB Rocks'consisting mainly of
jeans for the high end of the market (retailing at approximately $300 in the U.S.). The line was successful and Victoria has contributed further lines, including children's and men's wear, for the Spring/Autumn of 2006. She has also worked on a range of women's clothes including shirts and skirts. The clothing features a
logo of a crown with the letters VB. It was reported that Victoria Beckham might be sued by HM
Queen Elizabeth II for use of what appeared to be the Queen's crown in this logo.
On
February 26,
2006, Beckham stated in an interview with the
Sunday Mirror :
"I'm never going to sing again, unless it was a chance to do something with the
Spice Girls. I don't really miss the shows we did together. I miss the girls more. I see
Geri a lot — I love her, she's amazing. I speak to the others from time to time. I love them too and miss them."
Beckham also declared that, for the moment, she and her former Spice colleagues are enjoying their solo careers in various fields.
She says: "We're all still doing our own thing. But that's the great thing about the position we're in now — when we decide we want to do more stuff, we can. There's no pressure and, at the end of the day, our fans have been so supportive — and so loyal — that hopefully, when we do come back they'll still be there." [
1]
Her husband David has offered a conflicting statement to Victoria's. When asked if she was planning on more solo music, he said in a interview, "You never know".
A spokesperson for Beckham has said she could return to music in the future. "She's focusing on her fashion activity at the moment and should she wish to do music at a later date then obviously that's something we can consider. She has a flexible career with which she can do whatever she wants to" the spokeswoman said. [
2]
Beckham has several tracks completed for an as-yet-unreleased second album. She also has tracks on the
ASCAP listed as "On hold for Victoria Beckham", suggesting she may release these tracks in the future.
High profile people in the music industry have also stated they would like to work with Beckham, including
DJ Sammy &
Armand Van Helden.
It was also reported that
Will Young has written a new track which he is keen for Beckham to sing on. Young later denied this. [
3]
Albums
*2001
Victoria Beckham #10 UK (50,000 copies), World(500,000)
Singles
* 2000 "
Out of Your Mind" [with
Truesteppers and
Dane Bowers] â€" #2 UK (376,000 copies)
* 2001 "
Not Such An Innocent Girl" â€" #6 UK (74,740 copies), #36 Australia, #15 Spain
* 2002 "
A Mind of Its Own" (2002)" â€" #6 UK (60,000 copies)
* 2003 "
This Groove / Let Your Head Go" â€" #3 UK (67,200 copies), #17 Ireland, Top40 European airplay, #1 Thailand Airplay, Top20 South Africa Airplay.
The following tracks also became available when "The 'Réal' Beckhams" documentary was released on
DVD in early
2004:
*Me And You This Time
*Valentine
*Resentment
*That Dude
* In July 2006, it was reported that Beckham has a 23 inch waist, a size more typical of a 7 year old girl. [
4]
* http://posh-madness.net - Posh Madness - Your number one source for everything Victoria Beckham
