Interviews of both David and Victoria

From the March 28th Style Section of the London Sunday Times:

When David Beckham flew into Manchester from Milan in the early hours of the morning after his team's recent draw, he immediately set off on a three-hour drive to London to be with his Spice Girl fiancée, Victoria Adams, and their newborn son, Brooklyn Joseph. He could easily have postponed his journey until the following morning - after all, it was late and he was exhausted.

"You must be joking," says Beckham. "I was tired but I hate being away from them, I absolutely hate it. It was 3am when I got there, but I was quite happy to sit up all night just watching him breathe. He's beautiful. Different every day. He eats unbelievably so he's gaining weight all the time, and he's started smiling, too - especially when he has wind. I can't put into words what I feel for him: it's like a bond between the three of us that started when he was in Victoria's stomach. It's unbelievable. He's unbelievable."

Unbelievable is a word Beckham uses a lot. Not only is Brooklyn unbelievable, but so was his birth, his mother (before, during and after), signing for Manchester United, scoring a goal in the World Cup, and the vicious avalanche of abuse he has suffered from the press and public since he was sent off for kicking out at the Argentine player Diego Simeone.

Were he anyone else, Beckham would be guilty of overuse of the adjective, but pretty much everything in and around Beckham is unbelievable.

His life is akin to a novel the public just can't put down, thanks to his indisputable talents on the pitch and the fact that he is one half of a great British institution, "Posh and Beckham" - a perfect hybrid of the two late- 1990s obsessions: football and the Spice Girls.

There is not a person in this country who doesn't know who David Beckham is, and yet there are probably no more than a handful who really know him. "Nobody knows me apart from the people I want in my life, and I like it that way," says Beckham, 23, who counts Victoria and Gary Neville, his teammate, as his best friends. "People read in the papers about how much money I'm supposed to earn, where I live and where I go on holiday, and they probably think, 'Flash git'. But that's not how I see myself."

Beckham is everything the headlines say he is not. His shyness and awkward manner around strangers are often misinterpreted as arrogance and, in contrast to his stern public image, he becomes animated, warm and playful when he is surrounded by those closest to him.

He first met Victoria when she came to a match - she had seen him in a magazine and orchestrated a meeting in the players' lounge. He had already seen her on television, and had told Neville: "She's the one for me." "As soon as I met her, I knew I was going to marry her. I had a sneaky feeling she would come to another game. I couldn't stop thinking about her. She's the only woman I've ever loved."

At The Sunday Times shoot, it's clear how much he relies upon Victoria's judgment. Every time he tries on a new outfit, the Polaroid is taken for her opinion into the side room where she is feeding the baby. She even steps in as stylist at one point, tugging on his trouser bottoms.

Beckham, carefully checking over my shoulder that his son and his fiancée are all right, can't help but ask, "He's amazing, isn't he?" while Victoria - immaculate in a fitted grey suit and with spiky hair - industriously puts baby wipes and nappies into bags, with Brooklyn strapped to her front.

"He's got Victoria's nose and colouring but he's starting to go blond like me. He's got my legs, my feet and my toes - exactly the same toes as me," marvels Beckham, almost to himself.

"We're a family now and I'm the happiest I've been in a long time. Since we've had him I've grown up a lot and he's made me look at life from a new perspective. Things that were important before just don't seem as important now. If something winds me up at work I come home and take one look at what we've made together and everything else just seems . . . I can't really put it into words."

The night Victoria went into labour, Beckham was on his way to her parents' home in London to take her out for dinner. She called him in the car to tell him they would have to cancel.

"I felt sick as soon as she told me," he says, laughing. "I panicked because I was so nervous - I just wanted Victoria and the baby to be all right.

"Victoria was brilliant, really calm - not like me. But once we were in the operating theatre it was fine. I held her hand throughout the birth and it all went really well. In fact, she kept telling me how hungry she was while it was all going on."

After a long afternoon at the Portland hospital in central London, Brooklyn - he was indeed conceived in New York - was eventually delivered by caesarean section at 7.48pm on Thursday, March 4, and Beckham was the first to hold his son. "I cried when he was born," he admits. "I wanted to cut his umbilical cord, but the doctor did it so quickly I didn't get the chance."

With Beckham Jr now one month old, his parents are well versed in the day-to-day care of their son, and endless feeding sessions, nappy changes and sleepless nights have not altered their decision to raise him without the help of a nanny.

"We had a child so that we can raise him - not a nanny. We both get up with him in the night and Victoria's really good with Brooklyn, very motherly. She never leaves his side and she feeds him and washes his clothes: that's the way she wants it. I love looking after him, too - in fact, I've just changed a nappy.

"There have been so many stories in the papers saying we're having a nanny and that we're selling pictures of Brooklyn and doing a television show about our wedding, and they are all untrue," he insists. "I get really angry when I read stories about us selling pictures of Brooklyn, because we've never even considered it. We don't want his picture splashed all over the papers - if he wants to do pictures when he's old enough to make that decision for himself, then fine.

"It's a different story with me and Victoria - we expect to be photographed because of what we do, but when we're with Brooklyn . . . well, I don't know how that's going to be and, I'll be honest with you, it worries me. You know, you'd die for your kid, so . . ."

From the moment the news broke of Beckham and Victoria's romance two years ago, there has barely been a day when the couple haven't made the news. It is a testament of their feelings for each other that their relationship has weathered Beckham's sending-off at the World Cup, which made him Britain's public enemy No 1, culminating with his effigy hanging from a pub doorway, and round-the-clock police protection for him and his family.

"I couldn't have got through it without her; she was my saviour," says Beckham, who immediately boarded a flight to New York after the match against Argentina to be with her. "We're both very strong people and we know nothing will break us. Our relationship is the most solid thing in my life. We've never even had a row.

"The thing that hurt the most about the World Cup was how my family were treated - I thought that was really out of order. I just hope I handled it with dignity. It's certainly made me mature a lot as a person and a player. At first I couldn't see any light at the end of the tunnel because by the time I got back from France it was totally out of control, there was nothing I could do or say to make it stop.

"People were having a go at me for leaving the country, but what did they expect me to do? I needed to get away and I don't think people understood that. I was upset and I hadn't seen Victoria since she found out she was pregnant. She was the person who made me happy again."

His only wish now is that Victoria and he can spend time with the baby, and he is looking forward to their wedding in August. "Things are looking good again. I'm the happiest I've ever been and now Brooklyn's in our life, I feel complete," he says.

Victoria and the baby had been staying with her parents for the two weeks after the birth, and at the end of our shoot, all three were going home to Manchester for the very first time. Beckham was nuzzling first her neck and then the baby's. As they left the studio, Beckham shielded the baby's face with his hand in case there was a photographer lurking in the street outside. The most famous family in the world had just left the building.

From the April 99 issue of Jane (in stores now!!!)

ROCK STAR MOM

DID YOU ALWAYS WANT TO HAVE CHILDREN?
I've always wanted to have children. But,obviously
it's not until you meet the person you want to have
children with that you really think about it. And I
think it's something that me and David talked about before
we got engaged. There is no point of getting married to someone and then finding out that you have diffrent ideas of what you want.

HOW DID YOU LIKE BEING PREGNANT?
I was on tour in America when I found out, and it was quite difficult. I had a lot of morning sickness. I was almost throwing up on the side of the stage. I had a cat suit on, and I was leaping around sort of like five, six nights a week. It's only, I'd say, in the last week that I've really been getting very tired and not doing as much. I'm having the baby in about four weeks (webmaster note..this has to be an old interview then ).

WHAT DID YOU WEAR WHEN YOU WERE PREGNANT?
The only thing I said, right from the start,was, "I'm not wearing maternity clothes, because they're horrendous." Incredibly unflattering. I've been very lucky-I haven't put on much weight at all. So really it's just been a lot of stretchy clothes, lots of Lycra. I think a lot of people think of it as a time to let themselves go, to eat loads and slob about all day, where I've made an effort. And it's a nice time to make yourself look nice-it makes you feel better. But funny enough, David went out the other day and bought me maternity knickers with bums in them-I've worn a G-string since I was 13 years old-and I absolutely refused to put them on.

DO YOU FIND YOURSELF CARING LESS ABOUT CERTAIN THINGS? LIKE LOOKS, OR FASHION, OR CELEBRITY?
No. At the end of the day I love my job, and that is very, very important to me. I'm very career minded, but if the baby needed my attention, then that would come before my work. You put everything into perspective, I think.

DO YOU TAKE YOUR KIDS WITH YOU ON THE ROAD?
I will take the baby to work with me, but I don't particularly want a baby that is in the limelight. I
never want it to look like a fashion accessory.

DOES MOTHERHOOD FIT INTO THE WHOLE "GIRL POWER" MANDATE?
I think it fits in pretty well. At the beginning a lot of people who didn't understand girl power said "great, okay they go on about girl power and then they go and get pregnant. That isn't girl power." Girl Power is about doing what you want to do, being an individual, speaking up for what you think and having a good time. And to be leaping about in a cat suit when your five months pregnant, to me, that is the ultimate girl power.

**this article was done with several celebrity mom's in various stages of pregnancy/childbirth.


INTERVIEWS!!! From the March 28th Style Section of the London Sunday Times: When David Beckham flew into Manchester from Milan in the early hours of the morning after his team's recent draw, he immediately set off on a three-hour drive to London to be with his Spice Girl fiancée, Victoria Adams, and their newborn son, Brooklyn Joseph. He could easily have postponed his journey until the following morning - after all, it was late and he was exhausted. "You must be joking," says Beckham. "I was tired but I hate being away from them, I absolutely hate it. It was 3am when I got there, but I was quite happy to sit up all night just watching him breathe. He's beautiful. Different every day. He eats unbelievably so he's gaining weight all the time, and he's started smiling, too - especially when he has wind. I can't put into words what I feel for him: it's like a bond between the three of us that started when he was in Victoria's stomach. It's unbelievable. He's unbelievable." Unbelievable is a word Beckham uses a lot. Not only is Brooklyn unbelievable, but so was his birth, his mother (before, during and after), signing for Manchester United, scoring a goal in the World Cup, and the vicious avalanche of abuse he has suffered from the press and public since he was sent off for kicking out at the Argentine player Diego Simeone. Were he anyone else, Beckham would be guilty of overuse of the adjective, but pretty much everything in and around Beckham is unbelievable. His life is akin to a novel the public just can't put down, thanks to his indisputable talents on the pitch and the fact that he is one half of a great British institution, "Posh and Beckham" - a perfect hybrid of the two late- 1990s obsessions: football and the Spice Girls. There is not a person in this country who doesn't know who David Beckham is, and yet there are probably no more than a handful who really know him. "Nobody knows me apart from the people I want in my life, and I like it that way," says Beckham, 23, who counts Victoria and Gary Neville, his teammate, as his best friends. "People read in the papers about how much money I'm supposed to earn, where I live and where I go on holiday, and they probably think, 'Flash git'. But that's not how I see myself." Beckham is everything the headlines say he is not. His shyness and awkward manner around strangers are often misinterpreted as arrogance and, in contrast to his stern public image, he becomes animated, warm and playful when he is surrounded by those closest to him. He first met Victoria when she came to a match - she had seen him in a magazine and orchestrated a meeting in the players' lounge. He had already seen her on television, and had told Neville: "She's the one for me." "As soon as I met her, I knew I was going to marry her. I had a sneaky feeling she would come to another game. I couldn't stop thinking about her. She's the only woman I've ever loved." At The Sunday Times shoot, it's clear how much he relies upon Victoria's judgment. Every time he tries on a new outfit, the Polaroid is taken for her opinion into the side room where she is feeding the baby. She even steps in as stylist at one point, tugging on his trouser bottoms. Beckham, carefully checking over my shoulder that his son and his fiancée are all right, can't help but ask, "He's amazing, isn't he?" while Victoria - immaculate in a fitted grey suit and with spiky hair - industriously puts baby wipes and nappies into bags, with Brooklyn strapped to her front. "He's got Victoria's nose and colouring but he's starting to go blond like me. He's got my legs, my feet and my toes - exactly the same toes as me," marvels Beckham, almost to himself. "We're a family now and I'm the happiest I've been in a long time. Since we've had him I've grown up a lot and he's made me look at life from a new perspective. Things that were important before just don't seem as important now. If something winds me up at work I come home and take one look at what we've made together and everything else just seems . . . I can't really put it into words." The night Victoria went into labour, Beckham was on his way to her parents' home in London to take her out for dinner. She called him in the car to tell him they would have to cancel. "I felt sick as soon as she told me," he says, laughing. "I panicked because I was so nervous - I just wanted Victoria and the baby to be all right. "Victoria was brilliant, really calm - not like me. But once we were in the operating theatre it was fine. I held her hand throughout the birth and it all went really well. In fact, she kept telling me how hungry she was while it was all going on." After a long afternoon at the Portland hospital in central London, Brooklyn - he was indeed conceived in New York - was eventually delivered by caesarean section at 7.48pm on Thursday, March 4, and Beckham was the first to hold his son. "I cried when he was born," he admits. "I wanted to cut his umbilical cord, but the doctor did it so quickly I didn't get the chance." With Beckham Jr now one month old, his parents are well versed in the day-to-day care of their son, and endless feeding sessions, nappy changes and sleepless nights have not altered their decision to raise him without the help of a nanny. "We had a child so that we can raise him - not a nanny. We both get up with him in the night and Victoria's really good with Brooklyn, very motherly. She never leaves his side and she feeds him and washes his clothes: that's the way she wants it. I love looking after him, too - in fact, I've just changed a nappy. "There have been so many stories in the papers saying we're having a nanny and that we're selling pictures of Brooklyn and doing a television show about our wedding, and they are all untrue," he insists. "I get really angry when I read stories about us selling pictures of Brooklyn, because we've never even considered it. We don't want his picture splashed all over the papers - if he wants to do pictures when he's old enough to make that decision for himself, then fine. "It's a different story with me and Victoria - we expect to be photographed because of what we do, but when we're with Brooklyn . . . well, I don't know how that's going to be and, I'll be honest with you, it worries me. You know, you'd die for your kid, so . . ." From the moment the news broke of Beckham and Victoria's romance two years ago, there has barely been a day when the couple haven't made the news. It is a testament of their feelings for each other that their relationship has weathered Beckham's sending-off at the World Cup, which made him Britain's public enemy No 1, culminating with his effigy hanging from a pub doorway, and round-the-clock police protection for him and his family. "I couldn't have got through it without her; she was my saviour," says Beckham, who immediately boarded a flight to New York after the match against Argentina to be with her. "We're both very strong people and we know nothing will break us. Our relationship is the most solid thing in my life. We've never even had a row. "The thing that hurt the most about the World Cup was how my family were treated - I thought that was really out of order. I just hope I handled it with dignity. It's certainly made me mature a lot as a person and a player. At first I couldn't see any light at the end of the tunnel because by the time I got back from France it was totally out of control, there was nothing I could do or say to make it stop. "People were having a go at me for leaving the country, but what did they expect me to do? I needed to get away and I don't think people understood that. I was upset and I hadn't seen Victoria since she found out she was pregnant. She was the person who made me happy again." His only wish now is that Victoria and he can spend time with the baby, and he is looking forward to their wedding in August. "Things are looking good again. I'm the happiest I've ever been and now Brooklyn's in our life, I feel complete," he says. Victoria and the baby had been staying with her parents for the two weeks after the birth, and at the end of our shoot, all three were going home to Manchester for the very first time. Beckham was nuzzling first her neck and then the baby's. As they left the studio, Beckham shielded the baby's face with his hand in case there was a photographer lurking in the street outside. The most famous family in the world had just left the building. From the April 99 issue of Jane (in stores now!!!) ROCK STAR MOM DID YOU ALWAYS WANT TO HAVE CHILDREN? I've always wanted to have children. But,obviously it's not until you meet the person you want to have children with that you really think about it. And I think it's something that me and David talked about before we got engaged. There is no point of getting married to someone and then finding out that you have diffrent ideas of what you want. HOW DID YOU LIKE BEING PREGNANT? I was on tour in America when I found out, and it was quite difficult. I had a lot of morning sickness. I was almost throwing up on the side of the stage. I had a cat suit on, and I was leaping around sort of like five, six nights a week. It's only, I'd say, in the last week that I've really been getting very tired and not doing as much. I'm having the baby in about four weeks (webmaster note..this has to be an old interview then ). WHAT DID YOU WEAR WHEN YOU WERE PREGNANT? The only thing I said, right from the start,was, "I'm not wearing maternity clothes, because they're horrendous." Incredibly unflattering. I've been very lucky-I haven't put on much weight at all. So really it's just been a lot of stretchy clothes, lots of Lycra. I think a lot of people think of it as a time to let themselves go, to eat loads and slob about all day, where I've made an effort. And it's a nice time to make yourself look nice-it makes you feel better. But funny enough, David went out the other day and bought me maternity knickers with bums in them-I've worn a G-string since I was 13 years old-and I absolutely refused to put them on. DO YOU FIND YOURSELF CARING LESS ABOUT CERTAIN THINGS? LIKE LOOKS, OR FASHION, OR CELEBRITY? No. At the end of the day I love my job, and that is very, very important to me. I'm very career minded, but if the baby needed my attention, then that would come before my work. You put everything into perspective, I think. DO YOU TAKE YOUR KIDS WITH YOU ON THE ROAD? I will take the baby to work with me, but I don't particularly want a baby that is in the limelight. I never want it to look like a fashion accessory. DOES MOTHERHOOD FIT INTO THE WHOLE "GIRL POWER" MANDATE? I think it fits in pretty well. At the beginning a lot of people who didn't understand girl power said "great, okay they go on about girl power and then they go and get pregnant. That isn't girl power." Girl Power is about doing what you want to do, being an individual, speaking up for what you think and having a good time. And to be leaping about in a cat suit when your five months pregnant, to me, that is the ultimate girl power. **this article was done with several celebrity mom's in various stages of pregnancy/childbirth.




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