Red Flags David And Victoria Beckham's Marriage Won't Last

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When Posh Spice married the bad-boy soccer player, many people were skeptical that their marriage would have legs. But David Beckham and Victoria Beckham have proven the haters wrong and have remained happily married for 25 years. However, the pseudo-British royals do share some similarities with the actual royal family in that there is plenty of speculation that their British marriage is not built to last. Appearing on "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon," David recounted how the two first met when Victoria came to watch one of his matches while he was playing for Manchester United, noting that of the Spice Girls, she was "obviously his favorite." The first meeting led to another, and after getting her phone number on the back of a train ticket (which he still has), the rest became history as the two built a life and family together, including their four kids: Brooklyn, Romeo, Cruz, and Harper.

In between their fated meeting and now, David and Victoria have weathered round after round of rumors that their allegedly strange marriage was not meant to last, with Hello! reporting that rumors boiled over in 2018 that their representatives had to release an official statement saying, "There is no impending statement, no divorce," and called such writings as these, "very bizarre and an embarrassing waste of time." Well, we will have to agree to disagree — we've noticed a number of red flags that persist to this day. Whether it's old wounds that have never quite healed or ambitions that the ridiculously wealthy couple still have, we're not entirely sure that the Beckhams will go the distance.

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David Beckham has been accused of cheating not once but twice — if not more. In 2003, Rebecca Loos served as David's personal assistant in Madrid before being terminated a few months later. Then, in 2004, Loos dropped the bombshell allegations in the UK tabloid "News of the World" that she and David had an affair. She later told Sky TV in an interview that they slept together a few times and engaged in sexting as often as 30 times a day. While David denies the affair, in the Netflix documentary "Beckham," Victoria opened up about the fraught time, saying, "But when we were in Spain, it didn't really feel like we had each other either ... I can't even begin to tell you how hard it was and how it affected me."

But as soon as the couple weathered one affair allegation, another popped up. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, a model named Sarah Marbeck claimed to have a two-year affair with David while his team, Real Madrid, was in Singapore, with the two maintaining a string of adulterous text messages. The outlet also reported that Victoria discovered the texts while pregnant with their second son, Romeo Beckham, and noted that Marbeck told an outlet, "When we made love David told me, 'I know what we are doing is wrong but I can't help it.'" Perhaps most shockingly, David reportedly even cheated on his cheaters, with PageSix reporting that in the tell-all book "The House of Beckham: Sex, Money, and Power," first-mistress Loos once caught David in bed with yet another woman and sadly told a friend, "I thought I was the only one."

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With so much adultery in the air, one might think that Victoria Beckham would cut her losses no matter how devilishly handsome David Beckham is. But much like the rumors of infidelity, the couple has constantly battled against divorce rumors, with Victoria triumphantly telling W Magazine in 2007, "David and I got through it together. No one said marriage was going to be easy ... But the fact is we've come out of everything we've been through stronger and happier. It's even better now than when we were first married." Years later, trouble in paradise reared its head when fans noticed that Victoria's infamous "DB" tattoo had disappeared in an Instagram video. Victoria again assuaged rumors when speaking to "Today," explaining, "I think that the media started to speculate was I leaving my husband. No. I was just a bit sick of the tattoo."

Some speculate that the secret to their long-lasting marital success might be that it is actually a marriage of convenience, with true love having set sail years ago. In "The House of Beckham: Sex, Money, and Power," author Tom Bower wrote that the couple is bonded by money after making a deal years ago to preserve their family unit for the sake of their brand. It's a different kind of separation rumor and one that David denied when he referenced the fact that he and Victoria renewed their wedding vows in 2017. During an interview with "Desert Island Discs," he explained, "People have talked about, 'Do we stay together because it's a brand?' Of course not. We stay together because we love each other." Whether for love or money, we still think there are enough rumors here to make the marital forecast look iffy.

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Idle hands do the devil's work, and while David Beckham allegedly used his free time to commit a little adultery, Victoria Beckham decided to be productive. Not content with being a trophy wife, the ever-transforming Victoria launched a luxury fashion label called, obviously, "Victoria Beckham." And it appears that in her ultra-driven pursuit to create something of her own, it has also come to preoccupy her every waking moment — even when she's in bed with David. She told The Guardian in 2014, "When I'm lying in bed I think about the next collection. That makes me sound insane, doesn't it? That I'm getting into bed with David Beckham and thinking about clothes." Still, we can't help but think that she might be playing a little game of passive-aggression as she shows David that she might be too busy trying to take over the world to waste her thoughts on his petty flings.

Still, nothing plagues a marriage quite like work slowly eating away at a couple's time together, and the drive for success appears to have a hold on both of them. David told Elle UK in 2012, "Whatever I do, I want to be the best," and he puts his money where his mouth is, securing millions in brand deals that have ratcheted his net worth to 450 million dollars. But Victoria told the New York Times that she has even larger goals, saying, "I want to get bigger and bigger. I absolutely want an empire." But with all of this brand dominance, we can't help but think about the allegation that they exist in a marriage of convenience and whether the two even need each other. But in the end, who has more brand loyalty than the brand itself?

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Despite years of scandal and rumor, Victoria and David Beckham have forged an identity as a couple who have gone through fire but always remained hand-in-hand. Or at least that's what the talking points are. But what happens when David strays from their carefully calculated appearance? David spoke to "The Sunday Project" in 2018, saying, "To have been married for the amount of time that we have, you know, it's always hard work," then added, "It becomes a little more complicated" (via USA Today).

Victoria took his words to heart, especially the part about their marriage being "hard work." The Sun reported that a friend claimed the two words hit Victoria like a nuclear bomb and sent the fashionista into a tear-streaked spiral, with her reportedly even checking herself into a German stress-management clinic. Granted, the choice of words came at a time when divorce rumors were once again bubbling up in media headlines, with the outlet reporting that David even bought an expensive home in his name alone. The couple once again ended up pulling out of the nosedive, but it's a telling look into how fragile the couple's carefully crafted nuptials are, and maybe exacerbates rumors that they live separate lives. And if the words "hard work" are enough to drive a wedge between the couple, we're not sure whether they will always be ready to weather the next storm.

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It's the straw that breaks the camel's back, and when it comes to the minutiae of being married, sometimes cleanliness can be a deal breaker. During an appearance on "The Overlap," David Beckham listed his "tidiness" as a trait that annoyed Victoria Beckham. Said tidiness appears to come hand-in-hand with his struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), with him detailing his need for order in an interview with ITV1, saying, "I have to have everything in a straight line, or everything has to be in pairs. I'll put my Pepsi cans in the fridge, and if there's one too many, then I'll put it in another cupboard somewhere." The same goes for hotel rooms, apparently, as David also spoke about tidying up the entire room to his exact specifications before he could settle in.

On the flip side, Victoria is known for letting things go. In her YouTube series "VB on the Road," she showed off a bedroom that featured an unkempt bed with sheets and pillows on the floor along with plenty of clutter before saying, "You can see why I drive my husband crazy. Because he is super, super tidy ... But I am a bit messy," then added, "This would be giving David a panic attack right now." While we would love to think that this is just a fun case of opposites attracting, amidst all of the other red flags that these two have endured, we could see a wayward bit of luxury clothing on the floor acting as the spark that finally sets this marriage aflame. Still, we're sure that David and Victoria would be happy to prove us wrong, but if they don't make it to their 30th wedding anniversary, don't tell us we didn't say so.