David Beckham is reminiscing on the time he and Victoria spent filming the Netflix "Beckham" docuseries.
On Wednesday night, the soccer star attended the David Beckham Fragrances Launch Party in New York City, where he shared it was "a huge honor" to team up with the streaming service and director Fisher Stevens for this project.
"It was a series that took me a while to come to terms with filming and talking about my life," Beckham said, according to People magazine. "And ten years ago, when I retired from playing soccer, people asked me to do it. And I wasn't really ready to look back and talk about my career and my life."
Beckham segued into how he waited for the perfect time to tell his story. After the athlete's retirement from soccer in 2013, he said he "was ready to move on straight away" to other business ventures.
"But then, about two or three years before the tenth anniversary of my retirement, I thought, ‘OK, maybe this is the right time now to tell the story,’" Beckham said.
Once Beckham met the "perfect team," which included Netflix and Stevens, the crew got right to work. He explained that the long process of crafting the docuseries was a "hell of a journey" for him and wife Victoria Beckham.
"It wasn't easy, and it was an emotional rollercoaster over the last two and a half years, but I think we’ve produced something that my team can be very proud of," he said. The crew spent 50 hours over the last several years to bring this project to life.
Fisher previously told People magazine David was "so open" during their conversations.
"He wasn't what I expected at all," the director added. "He was so open. He's like, 'I'm ready. I want to tell my story before someone else does.' And then I started doing research, and I was like, ‘Jesus, this guy's life is nuts. Nuts.’ I had no idea."
Stevens is not surprised Beckham's perfectionist nature and keen eye to detail has translated into his life after retirement.
"There's a kind of warmth to him. He listens, and he's warm. And he seems to [care] about people a lot," Stevens told the outlet. "He has an incredible aesthetic. He's not educated. He's not an intellectual by any means, but there is an innate intelligence to him of how to read people and sort of how to read a room."
"Beckham" had its fair share of bombshells. The legendary soccer player shares how he was first introduced to the sport, his romance with wife "Posh Spice" and how family is the most important thing to him.
The four-part series includes interviews with David, Victoria, David's parents and past teammates. Stevens illustrates everything from how Beckham had an issue with saving his money to how he dealt with being accused of disgracing his country and being labeled the "new Charles and Diana."
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A major moment in the series was when David and Victoria addressed "horrible stories" about them that rocked their marriage in 2003. At the time, tabloids alleged he was having an affair.
David had moved to Spain to play for Real Madrid, and although the couple did not mention the woman by name in the docuseries, David's former personal assistant, Rebecca Loos, previously came forward about an alleged four-month affair in 2003.
In the documentary, headlines are shown on screen, including claims of "secret sex," "alleged affair," and "marriage crisis." "There was some horrible stories that were difficult to deal with," Beckham said in the docuseries.
Victoria added that it was "100 percent" the hardest time in their marriage. "It was the hardest period for us. Because it felt like the world was against us."
David added, "When I first moved to Spain, it was difficult because I had been part of a club and a family [at Manchester United] for my whole career, from the age of 15 to when I was 27. I get sold overnight, the next minute I’m in a city, I don’t speak the language. More importantly, I didn’t have my family."
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"Every time that we woke up we felt there was something else. ... We both felt at the time that we were not losing each other but drowning," he clarified. "I don’t know how we got through it, in all honesty."
"Victoria is everything to me, to see her hurt was incredibly difficult, but we’re fighters and at that time we needed to fight for each other, we needed to fight for our family. And what we had was worth fighting for."
