Victoria Beckham is opening up about her battle with an eating disorder and the pressure she faced to control her image like never before.
In her new Netflix docuseries Victoria Beckhampremiering Thursday, October 9, the 51-year-old designer reflects on the emotional toll of fame and the years of being overly critical of herself.
“I don’t know what I saw when I looked in the mirror,” she admits.
“Was I fat? Was I thin? I don’t know. You lose all sense of reality. I was just very critical of myself. I didn’t like what I saw. It was a lot and that’s difficult.”
Victoria recalls how her struggles intensified after the Spice Girls split in 2000.
The singer, then best known as Posh Spice, had married football icon David Beckham a year earlier, and the two raised four children: Brooklyn, 26, Romeo, 23, Cruz, 20, and Harper, 14.
Looking back, she says she sought control through her appearance.
‘I was able to control it [how I was perceived] with clothes. I was able to control my weight. I controlled it in an incredibly unhealthy way,” she explains. “When you have an eating disorder, you become very good at lying.”
She admits that she wasn’t open with those closest to her at the time.
“I was never honest with my parents,” she says.
“I’ve never talked about it publicly. It really affects you when you’re constantly told you’re not good enough. I suppose it’s been that way all my life.”
Criticism came from all sides, sometimes labeling her as ‘too skinny’ and sometimes ‘too fat’.
Victoria recalls a particularly painful moment in 1999, just six months after welcoming her first child, when she was weighed on national television.
“I’ve been everything from Porky Posh to Skinny Posh,” she says. “I had no control over what was written about me, over the pictures that were taken, and I guess I wanted to have control over that, you know, with the clothes.”
Her husband, David Beckham, also reflects on how harshly she was treated at the time.
“People felt it was okay to criticize a woman for her weight,” he says. “A lot of things happened on TV then that won’t happen now, and can’t happen now.”
Although it was painful to revisit those memories, Victoria says she felt it was time to face her past.
Speak with The Sunday times earlier this month she explained that making the documentary felt like a form of healing.
“I’m defined by a four-year period in my life. That was the Spice Girls,” she said.
“It’s taken me almost 20 years to fight that and I feel like it’s only now that I can look back and talk about it. I’m not going to lie, the questions being asked about my time with the Spice Girls were quite triggering. And I would say those were the hardest moments. It was almost like therapy for me.”
Yet she looks back on that time with gratitude.
“I love the Spice Girls. I really do,” she added.
“I recently had dinner with Emma and Geri, and Mel B messaged me this weekend. I still speak to all the girls. I’m so proud of everything we did. I wouldn’t be who I am today if it wasn’t for the Spice Girls, 100 percent.”
Victoria Beckham begins streaming on Netflix on Thursday, October 9.
