As hard as it may seem to believe, Victoria Beckham found it hard to fit in with the crowd and didn't have a lot of friends in school.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on July 16, 2021. It has since been updated.
There's probably not a single person who doesn't know who Victoria Beckham is. She's literally the epitome of "Posh" and she keeps setting the bar, and standards, so high that it's rather impossible to catch up with her. It's safe to say that the 47-year-old former Spice Girls member and wife of soccer legend David Beckham has got it all. In fact, she's a role model to countless teenagers all over the world who want to become just like her when they grow up.
However, back in the day, she had no idea that her life was going to turn out so great when she was being bullied by her peers in secondary school. In a letter she wrote to her 18-year-old self in 2017, the self-made businesswoman spoke about how she didn't fit in with the rest of the crowd.
"You haven’t forgotten being bullied at school, have you? Do you recall that first day at secondary school? Most children were wearing their own coats and had the latest cool bag, but not you," she wrote, per Vogue. "Kitted out in the full St Mary’s High School uniform, you stood in the freezing playground while other teenagers walking past threw soggy tissues and old Coke cans that they plucked from the puddles."
"But the thick skin that you developed then is already standing you in good stead, and it will do so for the rest of your life."
In 2020, she explained during another Vogue interview that she was kind of a loner in school. "When I was at school, I was quite an awkward teenager; I didn’t have a huge amount of friends, and looking back I recognise that I was bullied at times. I would never want anyone else to feel how I was made to feel."
When she was 18, the mother-of-four shared that she was "struggling" with body image issues, as well. "You are not the prettiest, or the thinnest, or the best at dancing at the Laine Theatre Arts college. You have never properly fitted in, although you are sharing your Surrey school digs with really nice girls. You have bad acne."
It wasn't easy for Beckham and all she really wanted to do was to give up and go back home, a place that felt safe to her. "There is a red telephone box outside the school and you have just rung your parents, crying, 'I can’t do this, I miss home, I’m not good enough.' And Mum has told you to come home." As tempting as that was, her dad convinced her to stay back and face her fears.
“Stay there, prove everyone wrong,” he said to her, over the phone.
Because of how people were to her, Beckham knew just how important it was to be kind and understanding. Her parents made sure she knew it, too. "Growing up, my parents always taught me the importance of kindness, and with my children, I’ve always said the same thing: it doesn’t matter how smart you are, how you look or how you dress, what’s most important is that you are kind to other people."
Just like her dad asked her to, Beckham proved everyone wrong, and sometimes, that feeling is so surreal, even for her. "Most days, you will look at your life and think, “Wow! I was never the one who was supposed to get all this.” I want to tell you that I still feel that way now."
Life can get quite hard at times, but there's always light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe this is your sign to hold on, just a little longer, to see what the future has in store for you. It's going to get better; it has to!
References:
https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/victoria-beckham-vogue-interview
Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer
