LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Beckham family falling-out has spilled further into public view in a series of social media posts from Brooklyn Beckham alleging that his parents David and Victoria Beckham have tried to sabotage his marriage and have always prioritized public branding over their family relationships.
“For my entire life, my parents have controlled narratives in the press about our family. The performative social media posts, family events and inauthentic relationships have been a fixture of the life I was born into,” Brooklyn Beckham wrote in several pages of text posted via Instagram stories.
Click to Gallery
FILE - Brooklyn Beckham appears at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala in New York on May 6, 2024. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
Former soccer player David Beckham leaves after a podcast during of the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
FILE - Romeo Beckham, from left, Cruz Beckham, Harper Beckham, David Beckham, Victoria Beckham, Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Peltz Beckham appear at the premiere of the Netflix docuseries "Beckham" in London on Oct. 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Vianney Le Caer, File)
FILE - Brooklyn Beckham, left, and Nicola Peltz attend the Victoria Beckham Spring/Summer 2025 collection presented in Paris on Sept. 27, 2024. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - David Beckham, from left, Victoria Beckham, Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Peltz appear at the premiere of the Netflix docuseries "Beckham" in London on Oct. 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Vianney Le Caer, File)
At 26, he's the eldest of the four children of the retired English soccer superstar and former Spice Girl-turned-fashion designer and has worked as a model and photographer, even aspiring to be a chef. He married American actor Nicola Peltz, daughter of activist investor Nelson Peltz, in 2022.
“Recently, I have seen with my own eyes the lengths that they’ll go through to place countless lies in the media, mostly at the expense of innocent people, to preserve their own facade. But I believe the truth always comes out,” the posts said.
The posts make public a barely veiled feud that had been brewing in anonymously sourced stories in tabloids for months. Younger brother Cruz Beckham said on Instagram in December that Brooklyn had blocked family members on social media.
“I do not want to reconcile with my family.” Brooklyn Beckham wrote. “I’m not being controlled, I’m standing up for myself for the first time in my life.”
Unlike his three younger siblings, Brooklyn Beckham did not appear in his mother's recent Netflix docuseries, “Victoria Beckham,” and did not show up at the October premiere as he and Peltz had for the London premiere in 2023 of the one centered on his father, called just “Beckham."
Many of the grievances described in the Instagram stories stem from the Peltz-Beckham wedding in Florida. He accused his mother of bailing at the last minute on designing Peltz's wedding dress, and said she “hijacked” the first dance he was supposed to have with his wife to music performed by Marc Anthony.
“She danced very inappropriately on me in front of everyone,” Brooklyn Beckham wrote. “I’ve never felt more uncomfortable or humiliated in my entire life.”
Without giving specifics he also wrote that before the wedding his parents “repeatedly pressured and attempted to bribe me into signing away the rights to my name.”
David and Victoria Beckham did not have an immediate public response to the posts, and messages to representatives from The Associated Press were not immediately answered.
In a Tuesday appearance on CNBC, David Beckham, who is at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, did not directly address his son's statements, but said that children make mistakes on social media and should be allowed to.
“That’s what I try to teach my kids. But you know, you have to sometimes let them make those mistakes as well,” he said.
Married since 1999, David and Victoria Beckham have three other children, 23-year-old Romeo, 20-year-old Cruz and 14-year-old Harper.
FILE - Brooklyn Beckham appears at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala in New York on May 6, 2024. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
Former soccer player David Beckham leaves after a podcast during of the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
FILE - Romeo Beckham, from left, Cruz Beckham, Harper Beckham, David Beckham, Victoria Beckham, Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Peltz Beckham appear at the premiere of the Netflix docuseries "Beckham" in London on Oct. 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Vianney Le Caer, File)
FILE - Brooklyn Beckham, left, and Nicola Peltz attend the Victoria Beckham Spring/Summer 2025 collection presented in Paris on Sept. 27, 2024. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - David Beckham, from left, Victoria Beckham, Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Peltz appear at the premiere of the Netflix docuseries "Beckham" in London on Oct. 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Vianney Le Caer, File)
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) — A former police officer was acquitted Wednesday evening of charges he failed in his duties to confront the gunman at an Uvalde, Texas, elementary school during the critical first minutes of what would become one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.
Jurors deliberated for more than seven hours before finding former Uvalde schools police officer Adrian Gonzalez, 52, not guilty in the first trial over the hesitant law enforcement response to the attack that killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022.
Flanked by his lawyers, Gonzales appeared to be fighting back tears after the verdict was read out.
The trial was a rare case in the U.S. of an officer facing criminal charges on accusations of failing to stop a crime and protect lives. Gonzales had faced up to two years in prison.
The nearly three-week trial included emotional testimony from teachers who were shot and survived. Prosecutors had argued in laying out their case that Gonzales abandoned his training and did nothing to stop or interrupt the teenage gunman before he entered the school.
Nearly 400 law enforcement officers ultimately rushed to the school, where 77 minutes passed before a tactical team finally entered the classroom to confront and kill the gunman. Gonzales was one of just two officers indicted, angering some victim’s families who have wanted more officers held accountable.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) — A jury began deliberating Wednesday in the trial of one of the first police officers on the scene of the Robb Elementary School attack in Uvalde, Texas, and prosecutors urged a conviction to send a message that law enforcement must fulfill their duty to protect when a gunman threatens children.
Adrian Gonzales, a former Uvalde schools officer, is the first officer to stand trial over the hesitant police response to the 2022 massacre, when a teenage gunman killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers in one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.
The trial is a rare case of a police officer charged with failing to stop a criminal act to protect lives.
“This is a failure to act case," special prosecutor Bill Turner told jurors in closing statements.
Gonzales, he said, had a duty to act even if it meant entering the building alone to face the gunman.
“We’re expected to act differently when talking about a child that can’t defend themselves,” Turner said. “If you have a duty to act, you can’t stand by while a child is in imminent danger.”
Gonzales, 52, sat at the defense table during more than two hours of closing statements from prosecutors and defense lawyers. Behind him in the courtroom were family members of several of the victims. Some cried when the names of the children killed and wounded that day were read out loud.
As jurors, Turner said, their verdict will set the bar over whether "it’s appropriate to stand outside, hearing 100 shots, while children are being slaughtered.”
Gonzales' attorney, Jason Goss, opened his statement by telling jurors his client was not responsible for the attack.
"The monster that hurt those kids is dead," Goss said. "It is one of the worst things that ever happened.”
A conviction would tell police they have to be “perfect” when responding to a crisis and could make them even more hesitant in the future, Goss said.
Gonzales has pleaded not guilty to 29 counts of child abandonment or endangerment for the 19 students killed and 10 others who were wounded. Gonzales faces up to two years in prison if convicted.
Gonzales did not take the stand in his own defense. Prosecutors said he was the first officer on the scene.
Gonazles has insisted he didn’t freeze in the chaotic early moments and never saw the gunman, and his lawyers argue that three officers on the other side of the school saw the gunman still outside and didn’t fire a shot.
Body camera footage shows Gonzales being among the first group of officers to enter a shadowy and smoky hallway trying to reach the killer in a classroom.
Contrary to the portrayal of a reluctant officer officer, Gonzales risked his life when he went into a “hallway of death" where others were unwilling to go in the early moments, his lawyers said.
"They are trying to feed you a coward sandwich and telling you Adrian is the one who gave it to you,” defense attorney Nico LaHood told jurors.
Prosecutors called 36 witnesses over nine days in a trial that began Jan. 5. Gonzales’ attorneys presented just two witnesses, starting with a woman who worked across the street from the school and who told jurors she saw the shooter ducking between cars and trying to stay out of view — testimony that could reinforce Gonzales’ claims that he never saw the gunman.
Jurors heard emotional testimony from teachers who recounted the terrifying moments when the 18-year-old gunman entered the school. Prosecutors have presented graphic photos from inside the classrooms and questioned officers who described the chaos of the response.
The trial was moved hundreds of miles to Corpus Christi after defense attorneys argued Gonzales could not receive a fair trial in Uvalde. Still, some victims' families have made the long drive to watch the proceedings.
Early in the trial, the sister of one of the teachers killed that day was removed from the courtroom after an angry outburst following one officer's testimony.
Prosecutors allege Gonzales, who had led an active shooter response training course two months before the shooting, abandoned his training and did not try to stop gunman Salvador Ramos before he entered the school.
Teacher Arnulfo Reyes described seeing a “black shadow with a gun” enter the room before he was shot and all 11 of his students were killed. Other teachers described students, some as young as second grade, grabbing safety scissors to attack the gunman if he came into their room.
The teachers and children followed their school shooting training, Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell told jurors.
“We’re not going to continue to teach children to rehearse their own death and not hold (police) to the training that’s mandated by state law,” Mitchell said.
Gonzales was one of 376 federal, state and local officers swarmed to the school as the attack unfolded. It would take more than an hour for a tactical team to breach a classroom and kill the gunman.
Only Gonzales and former Uvalde schools police chief Pete Arredondo have been criminally charged for the delayed response. Arredondo was indicted on similar charges on the same day as Gonzales in 2024, but his trial has not yet been set.
Vertuno reported from Austin, Texas.
Jesse Rizo and his wife Juanita Cazares-Rizo listen to the prosecution and defense deliver their closing statements to the jury on the 11th day of the trial for former Uvalde school district police officer Adrian Gonzales at the Nueces County Courthouse on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in Corpus Christi, Texas. T (Sam Owens /The San Antonio Express-News via AP, Pool)
Special prosecutor Bill Turner delivers a closing statement to the jury on the 11th day of the trial for former Uvalde school district police officer Adrian Gonzales at the Nueces County Courthouse on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in Corpus Christi, Texas. (Sam Owens /The San Antonio Express-News via AP, Pool)
Defense attorney Nico LaHood mimics a police officer responding to a threat inside a classroom while delivering a closing statement to the jury on the 11th day of the trial for former Uvalde school district police officer Adrian Gonzales at the Nueces County Courthouse on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in Corpus Christi, Texas. (Sam Owens /The San Antonio Express-News via AP, Pool)
Former Uvalde school district police officer Adrian Gonzales listens to closing statements on the 11th day of his trial at the Nueces County Courthouse on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in Corpus Christi, Texas. (Sam Owens /The San Antonio Express-News via AP, Pool)
Police officers escort Velma Lisa Duran of the courtroom as she yells at witness Joe Vasquez, a Zavala County Sheriff's Office deputy, during a trial for former Uvalde school district police officer Adrian Gonzales at the Nueces County Courthouse in Corpus Christi, Texas, on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. Duran's sister Irma Garcia was one of two teachers who were killed in the Robb Elementary mass shooting. (Sam Owens/The San Antonio Express-News via AP, Pool)
Javier Cazares listens to testimony during the 10th day of the trial of former Uvalde school district police officer Adrian Gonzales at the Nueces County Courthouse in Corpus Christi, Texas, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. Cazares is the father of Robb Elementary shooting victim Jackie Cazares, one of the 19 children killed by an 18-year-old gunman. (Sam Owens/The San Antonio Express-News via AP, Pool)
Defense attorney Nico LaHood cross-examines the prosecution's witness Nick Hill, a Texas Ranger lieutenant with the Texas Department of Public Safety, during the 10th day of the trial for former Uvalde school district police officer Adrian Gonzales at Nueces County Courthouse in Corpus Christi, Texas, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (Sam Owens/The San Antonio Express-News via AP, Pool)
Former Uvalde school district police officer Adrian Gonzales, left, talks to his defense attorney Nico LaHood during a break on the 10th day of his trial at Nueces County Courthouse in Corpus Christi, Texas, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (Sam Owens/The San Antonio Express-News via AP, Pool)
