David Beckham explains the origin story of ‘be honest’ meme with wife Victoria
David Beckham is peeling back the curtain on the infamous moment in “Beckham,” the 2023 Netflix documentary about his life, in which he took wife Victoria Beckham to task after she claimed they came from working class families.
During an Aug. 29 episode of "Hot Ones," the soccer legend explained how the moment went down, noting director Fisher Stevens wasn’t pleased that David Beckham stuck around for his wife’s interview.
“He was angry. He was angry with me. You know, Fisher. I love Fisher. He apparently wanted me out the house,” David Beckham told "Hot Ones" host Sean Evans.
“And that particular day was Victoria’s first day of filming, when she sat there, doors closed, and then I was about to leave for the office, but I made a coffee, and then I saw a spare set of headphones, so I put the headphones on, and I heard Fisher talking about our parents and our upbringing," he continued.
David Beckham then said he was blindsided by Victoria Beckham's claim.
“And then all of a sudden, I heard her say, ‘You know, we’re working class.’ And that moment, I was like, ‘OK.’ I headed to the door. I opened the door, and I saw Fisher’s face, and he was not happy,” he recalled.
“And I was like, so that’s really, I was like, ‘Be honest.’ The camera guys were so amazing because they literally panned over to me in the door," he continued. "And that was really a moment that, yeah, kind of went viral, but Fisher was not happy. Fisher was really not happy.”
In “Beckham,” the soccer star took a funny jab at his wife, who rose to international fame in the '90s as Posh Spice in the girl group Spice Girls, when she claimed she came from a “working class” family.
In the series premiere, the couple discussed their mutual attraction from the first time they met. Victoria Beckham said the two shared similar backgrounds.
“I think also we both come from families that work really hard. Both of our parents worked really hard. We’re very working class,” she said.
David Beckham then peeked into the room where she was giving the interview and took issue with that claim.
“Be honest!” he said.
“I am being honest,” she responded.
“What car did your dad drive you to school in?” he shot back.
As the former Manchester United great repeated the question a few times, Victoria responded “It’s not a simple answer” and “It depends.”
“OK, in the ’80s my dad had a Rolls Royce,” she said.
“Thank you,” he said, exiting the room.
The former pop star's father worked as an electrical wholesaler, according to a 2013 New York Times profile. The series doesn't explore whether or not her family was wealthy.
Fans had fun with the moment on social media.
"David Beckham is the last remaining investigative journalist," one viewer wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
The Beckhams married in 1999 and went on to have four kids: Brooklyn, 25, Romeo 21, Cruz, 19, and Harper, 13.
“Beckham” also takes a deep dive into the couple’s marital problems that surfaced amid rumors the soccer star cheated on her when he played with Real Madrid in Spain in 2004.
“Victoria is everything to me,” he said, in the series fourth and final episode. “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.”
Victoria Beckham also said the strain of the problems of their marriage during that era became a lot to bear.
“Did I resent David? If I am being totally honest, yes I did,” she said.
“It was probably, if I’m being honest, the most unhappy I have ever been in my entire life. It wasn’t that I felt unheard because I chose to internalize a lot of it because I was always mindful of a focus that he needed.”
This article was originally published on TODAY.com