The parallels between Prince Harry and Brooklyn Beckham grow stronger by the day. Both have very tricky American wives who are a few years older than them; both are estranged from family and friends. Harry seems to be turning his back on his country, Brooklyn hasn’t yet but it can only be a matter of time. What is there for his wife Nicola Peltz in this dreary little country?
It’s a wonder she and Meghan Markle haven’t bonded over a shared loathing of the British weather and our incompetent dentistry but perhaps it’s unlikely. There wouldn’t be space enough for those two egos in any one room. It is extraordinary, though, how both those women have managed to put their men into a hostage situation, cut off from all they held dear.
It probably helps that neither chap seems to have a great deal going on in the brains department, but in both cases they are being used to build brands – which is not to say that their wives don’t love them. It just helps that both men have a surname that is globally recognised.
But there is a big difference: Harry lost his mother when he was 12 and it is now clear that relations with his father have always been fraught.
Whereas Brooklyn comes from a rock-solid stable family, whose parents have managed to stay married to each other and, as far as we know, have produced a brood that actually get on.
We have yet to hear of fisticuffs between Brooklyn and Romeo and given that his little sister Harper’s birthday is coming up soon, let’s hope he at least acknowledges that.
People have been saying that this unfortunate episode throws light on David and Victoria’s parenting in a negative way: the opposite is the case.
No parent is responsible for an adult child; it is Brooklyn and no one else who decided to take this particular path. But unlike the King (for whom I have total sympathy – he’s in an impossible position) David Beckham’s been bending over backwards to invite his son back into the fold.
There have been Instagram posts reaching out, acknowledgements that his first-born is missed and clear signs of a hope for a future reconciliation.
Neither has Brooklyn publicly trashed his family, a la Harry. There’s every reason that this can be worked out. As for Harry himself, it looks like a lost cause. Let’s just hope that when his own children, the only close family he seems to have left, grow up and start making their own way in life, that history doesn’t repeat itself.
