A former top showbiz journalist has dished the dirt on a candid interview he did with Victoria Beckham which left the former Spice Girl “furious” and vowing to never speak to him again.
UK entertainment reporter-turned-PR Dean Piper shared the story on his personal website this week, revealing that he fronted up to a swanky London restaurant in February 2012 for what was planned as a sit-down interview with Beckham about her fashion line.
Piper, who was working for the Sunday Mirror at the time, recounted that he and Beckham seemed to get along famously, sipping champagne as she pushed their interview time well beyond their allotted 15 minutes.
Beckham had given birth to her youngest child, daughter Harper, just seven months earlier, and spoke honestly about the difficulties of juggling motherhood with her workload.
“I’m not getting much sleep at all,” she told him. “Harper’s not sleeping that great, and I’ve been taking Skype business calls throughout the night too because of the collections. I’m up with the baby as all mums are and I wouldn’t have it any other way. There’s not a team of people doing it for me,” she said.
“And then people want to say I look crap. Well, I’m a working mum, so give me a break.”
When the interview eventually wrapped, Beckham still in good spirits, Piper told her she’d been much more enjoyable company than her “moody fashion maven” persona suggested.
“Look, if people want to say I’m f***ing miserable then so be it,” she told him. “I’m really not. I have a lot on my plate. I’m not going to lie about it, I’m tired. I’m really tired but I’m also very happy with my life. I’m basically just like any woman who’s working and has lots of children – it’s tough.”
Piper recalled that he raced back to the office to write up the story for the next day’s papers, where it was teased on the cover with a blurb reading: “Posh fumes: ‘If people think I’m f***ing miserable then so be it.’”
Cue disaster. Soon, a text came in from Beckham’s publicist, telling him that the interview had “caused such a s**t storm.” She told him Beckham was “furious” with she swear words being included and “hated” the written interview, which she thought made her sound like she was exhausted and struggling to cope with her life.
Piper claimed he later learned Beckham’s own mother had also chastised her about swearing so much to the press.
To placate her, Piper took the swear words out of the online version of the article, but the next day came another text from Beckham’s PR: “She’s not calming down about it at all. She’s said she will never work with you or the paper again too. Sorry. X”
10 months later, when Piper fronted up to a Spice Girls press call for their ill-fated West End musical, he received another warning from Beckham’s PR over text that Posh was still angry, and still did not want to talk to him.
And it seems she carries that grudge to this day: Piper writes that his Sunday Mirror scoop is, to date, the last tabloid newspaper interview Beckham ever did. Despite several London near-misses, he and Beckham have never crossed paths again.
Piper recounting of his Victoria Beckham encounter is part of a series of posts he’s written in recent days about his experiences with each of the Spice Girls – among them, his time working with Melanie C during a pivotal point in her solo career and the story of one sad night in a hotel room with Mel B when she was trapped in an abusive marriage.
Meanwhile, Beckham recently celebrated her 50th birthday with a star-studded London bash which gifted fans that rarest of sightings: A five-piece Spice Girls reunion.