The Moment
David Beckham tried to wrap up 2025 with a warm-and-fuzzy Instagram year-end post… and somehow managed to pour gasoline on the ongoing Beckham family drama instead.
On his main grid, David shared a glossy recap of the year: 20 photos, big emotions, huge gratitude. He thanked his “incredible wife” Victoria, their “amazing children,” and everyone who made 2025 special. It was the kind of post you skim and think, yep, everyone’s happy and rich.
Except there was one very loud absence: his eldest son, Brooklyn.
Fans immediately noticed that Brooklyn, 26, was nowhere in the main 2025 roundup. Comments rolled in, including one that summed up the mood: it’s “sad Brooklyn wasn’t included… he’s still their son.”
There’s a notable absence from David Beckham’s 2025 Instagram recap: his son, Brooklyn Peltz Beckham. https://t.co/nX1pRWUM82 pic.twitter.com/5lzVq5fI07
— E! News (@enews) December 31, 2025
Not long after, David hopped onto Instagram Stories and suddenly, there was Brooklyn – in sweet throwback photos, alongside individual snaps with each of the Beckham kids. Over the pictures, David wrote things like, “I’m so grateful for my family I love you all,” “I’m so lucky to have my amazing family,” and, “You are my life. I love you all, Love Daddy.” He wrapped it with a tidy “On to 2026.”
This all lands just days after younger brother Cruz publicly claimed that Brooklyn had blocked him and their parents on Instagram, while denying that the parents had blocked Brooklyn first. So yes, something is clearly off in Beckhamland – even if no one’s spelling it out.
The Take
I’ll say it: nothing exposes a family rift faster than a carefully curated Instagram grid.
On paper, David’s “fix” – making sure Brooklyn shows up in Stories after being left out of the big feed post – reads like damage control. It has big, “Oh no, Mom’s mad, quick add that photo to the slideshow” energy. The main grid is the family Christmas card; Stories are the notes scribbled after Aunt Carol complains she wasn’t thanked.
Do I think David sat there and thought, I’m going to shade my own son publicly? Probably not. But intent doesn’t matter as much as impact when millions of people are watching. Leaving Brooklyn off the 2025 highlight reel – when there are already reports of tension – feels less like an oversight and more like a neon sign.
The post-criticism Stories don’t totally fix it, either. To fans, it looks like this: Brooklyn’s missing from the permanent “perfect family” scrapbook, then suddenly appears in the temporary content that disappears after 24 hours. That difference may be tiny in influencer logic, but it reads loud in 2026 family drama.
This is the dark side of celebrity “relatable” parenting online. The Beckhams invite us into their lives – the birthday tributes, the adorable Harper moments, the “I love my family” speeches. But once you make your family brand part of your job, the gaps become stories too. Who’s tagged. Who’s cropped. Who’s missing from a 20-photo year-end love letter.
The analogy? It’s like organizing a giant family photo wall in your living room and leaving one kid’s frame empty. Then, when guests point it out, you pull out your phone and say, “No, no, look, I have their picture here.” Technically, yes, the photo exists. Emotionally, that blank space on the wall is all anyone sees.
To be fair, nobody outside the family knows the full story. Grown kids have a right to distance themselves. Parents have a right to post what they actually lived with the people who showed up. But when your business model includes “We Are A Loving, Beautiful Family,” even tiny online choices become public verdicts.
The piece I keep coming back to? Cruz saying Brooklyn blocked him and their parents. If true, that’s not just a tiff; that’s a full digital door slam. Against that backdrop, David’s Stories about how he loves them all and is “so grateful” feel less like a simple dad tribute and more like a PR bandage on a very real wound.
In the end, what we’re seeing isn’t just celebrity drama – it’s a modern parenting problem turned up to stadium volume: when your kids grow up, move out, marry, change, and maybe pull away, what do you do with the picture-perfect narrative you’ve been posting for years?
Receipts
- Confirmed: David Beckham posted a 2025 year-end Instagram roundup thanking his wife and children, sharing about 20 photos and leaving Brooklyn out of the main grid post. This is visible on his official Instagram account as of Dec. 31, 2025.
- Confirmed: David later posted Instagram Stories featuring individual photos with each of his children, including Brooklyn, with captions like “I’m so grateful for my family I love you all,” “I’m so lucky to have my amazing family,” and, “You are my life. I love you all, Love Daddy,” and ended with “On to 2026,” as seen by followers on Dec. 31, 2025.
- Confirmed: Fans publicly commented on the missing Brooklyn in the main recap post, including one remark calling it “sad” he wasn’t included, according to widely shared screenshots and celebrity news coverage dated Dec. 31, 2025.
- Claimed/Unverified: Cruz Beckham recently said that Brooklyn blocked him and their parents on Instagram, while denying reports that their parents blocked Brooklyn first. This has been reported in entertainment news but has not been independently confirmed by Brooklyn or the parents.
- Reported, not confirmed by family: Tension between Brooklyn and his parents has been widely reported since his 2022 wedding to actor-heiress Nicola Peltz, though no one in the family has laid out the details publicly.
Sources: David Beckham’s public Instagram posts and Stories (Dec. 31, 2025); multiple entertainment news reports and fan screenshot compilations published Dec. 31, 2025.
Backstory (For Casual Readers)
If you haven’t kept a running spreadsheet of Beckham family headlines, here’s the quick catch-up. David Beckham is the former English soccer star turned global brand. His wife, Victoria, is the fashion designer and former pop star many of us still reflexively call “Posh Spice.” They have four children: Brooklyn (their eldest), Romeo, Cruz, and daughter Harper.
Brooklyn, now best known as an aspiring chef and personality in his own right, married Nicola Peltz in a very high-profile wedding in 2022. Since then, entertainment outlets have repeatedly reported tension between Nicola and Victoria, and by extension, some distance between Brooklyn and his parents. The family has occasionally appeared together at events and in social posts, but the “are-they-or-aren’t-they-feuding?” storyline just won’t die.
Against that backdrop, every little Instagram move – which child gets a birthday essay, which couple shows up courtside, who likes which post – gets read like a royal family tea leaf. So a year-end recap that leaves out the eldest son? That’s not going to slide by unnoticed.
What’s Next
Real talk: the next move belongs to Brooklyn, whether he takes it or not. If he posts something warm about his dad or shares one of those throwback shots, people will read it as a softening. If he ignores the whole thing, the “rift” narrative only grows.
On the parents’ side, watch for a few things:
- Any future posts that put Brooklyn front and center – birthdays, anniversaries, or a quiet family dinner photo would speak volumes.
- Whether the Beckhams and Brooklyn/Nicola show up together at major events this year, especially fashion shows, premieres, or big sporting appearances.
- Any on-the-record comment from the family about the alleged blocking and reported tension (though they’ve mostly preferred the “smile and post through it” strategy so far).
At some point, this family may decide to stop playing out their dynamics through who appears where on the grid. But until then, their social feeds are doing what social feeds always do: telling a story, even when they don’t mean to.
Where do you land on this – is leaving a grown child out of a public family post ever just an innocent oversight, or does it always say something bigger?
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