Cruz Beckham covers the latest issue of I-D Magazine. I realize I’m showing my age, but I’ve absolutely gotten to the point where teenagers all look like fetuses to me. Cruz is way too young to be on the cover of I-D in his underwear!! Not only is he too young, he LOOKS too young. Cruz was 16 years old when Steven Klein photographed him, although he was 17 when the photos were released. Nope. Still too young. That being said, I-D pointed out that this was supposed to be an homage to photos taken of his father David Beckham by Klein in 2003. Yeah… but David Beckham was already David Beckham, he was an adult and he was famous. This is just his underage son.
Anyway, why is Cruz Beckham getting hyped? Because of his music career. Or the dream of a music career. Most of the I-D piece is just a word salad of all of the music people Cruz knows and has worked with already or is planning to work with. The nepotism fairly reeks, although I’m not saying that to attack Cruz’s character or anything. He actually seems like kind of a sweet kid. He’s just a sweet kid who is being handed a musical career on a silver platter, and they’re trying to brand him as “tough” and “street-wise” or something.
His musical influences: As a kid, eclectic sounds – from the Stone Roses (“I went to one of their reunion concerts in Manchester”) and Oasis to Mariah Carey and R&B – battled it out on the speakers at home, the two sides exposing him to as many genres as possible. But it was only when his parents heard him singing Love on Top by Beyoncé in the car and hitting the high notes, that they and he realised he might be able to make it his career. “I was still really little! My voice hadn’t really developed, so I could just sing that high!” He’s tried again since, but his octaves have dropped with age.
He’s already rejected a footballer’s career: “I thought I would want to do football and I did that for a bit,” he recalls, even going so far as winning a contract with Arsenal. But still, he came back to music, which felt like his first love. “At that point, I just decided: this is exactly what I want to do.”
He’s learning: He’s learning how to play instruments, often self-taught: guitar, piano, drums; “I even learnt how to play the mandolin for a song that I wrote”. He stresses, on nearly a dozen occasions, that he’s learning; figuring this out before he dives in. “I don’t think you ever stop learning, but I’m taking my time seeing what happens.” Right now, the focus is on “just making the music I love.”
While I-D doesn’t put any kind of emphasis on this, I get the feeling that Cruz is actually going to try to finish high school before he jumps into a full-throttle music career? And he sort of makes it sound like that’s his decision, his call to wait a second and actually grow up a little bit more before he fully enters the music world. Which makes me wonder if David and Victoria have been pushing their kids into nepotism-careers forever, and the Beckham kids are starting to tell their parents “actually I need to finish school?” That’s what Willow Smith had to do with her parents too – they kept pushing her and pushing her and she was the one to apply the brakes. Now I wonder if little Harper Beckham is going to end up with her bachelor’s degree before she settles into her career, just to spite her parents.
Cover & IG courtesy of I-D Magazine.
His photo spread should be captioned “Beiber Redux”. In all seriousness, I think he was always the most “LA” of all the kids. Wasn’t he the one that was the breakdancer when they were living stateside in LA? I seem to recall one of of the kids being all in on music entertainment and had briefly lost his English accent. I might be misremembering, but I think it was him.
It was. He “released” some ditty at some point (I think he was a pre-teen then?).
He and his older brother always look in need of a good scrub (as does their father!).
And someone PLEASE put out the word to stop with that stupid open mouthed pose! Honestly, the mouth-breather look is NOT sexy or alluring (esp. with a grill in it).
This whole thing is tragic. Where is the reasonable fan base for this child? Young white men who are tough, wear mesh shirts, are streetwise, fabulously wealthy, and love Liam Gallagher as well as “Mariah Carey & RnB”. Guys, she’s Black. It’s okay to call her music RnB.
You know what…if I had famous rich parents with connections, I wouldn’t be like “naww I’ll take the hard road”. I say if you can get in the door, get in. That’s life. It’s the same in the real world. So many people hired because their parents know the person hiring. So many getting promotions when they aren’t the best person for the job, oh but they went to highscool with the CEO. It’s all unfair, but nothing in life is fair really.
If he’s so interested in music, why isn’t he taking music lessons or going to a school for the arts? I does sound like he’ll be on that nepotism music train quite soon.
Serious eye roll for getting a cover just for being born. Although I have never heard of this magazine. It’s weird that they are promoting a career that hasn’t even started.
None of their kids have any x factor.
I guess… good for David and Victoria letting their kids live their dreams? LOL
It’s easy to hate on nepotism kids, but money and influence doesn’t mean they’re going to be successful, and if mom and dad want to waste money on failed careers, that’s their right. Plenty of “normal” people do just the same, only their kids aren’t in the spotlight.
I have always loved the fact that this couple really seem to be a family: they *enjoy* being with their kids, doing things together (working out, vacations (w/family friends as well)).
What I find *very* unappealing is that they don’t seem to value making sure their kids get an education. Yes, I know that they’ll always have an enormous trust fund to cushion their lives. But education is for personal growth, to encourage intellectual curiosity, to make one a well-rounded person… I don’t believe ANY of their boys has any intention of this option. The older one can’t do squat, and keeps flitting around, dropping it as soon as he loses interest and/or (let’s face it) fails at it. The middle boy dropped out of school to be a “nepo-model”, and now this one, still in HS, is thinking he’s going to be the world’s next Rock Staaaaaahr.
I hope Harper just ignores all attempts to “nepo” her, and goes all the way through school, even to the doctorate level! lol
YES. D&V both have a strong work ethic but have removed all possible sources of friction that might encourage their children to develop the same. Bulldozer parents, except they’re not even bulldozing their kids into institutions of higher learning, they’re just making the path smooth for their kids to indulge in hobbies and hang out.
I would feel like a failure as a parent if my children could have had the opportunity to pursue any course of study and just…didn’t. I get (and agree, to an extent) the poster above who says, “if you don’t have to struggle, why would you?” but there’s a difference between not struggling and this self-taught nonsense and wanting to be an expert right out of the gate. Read a book!! Take lessons!! Go to school to learn composition. Or sound engineering. Or hell, pay experts in the field to tailor a course of study JUST for you! But do SOMETHING.
And the cover is off-putting, he looks like a slightly scrawny not-full-grown boy with pink hair and weird doodle tattoos in his undies. I have a son not too much younger than he was in these pics (mine will be 15 in the fall) and it’s a giant NOPE from me.
I don’t think David or Posh had much education themselves did they? Kind of makes sense why it’s not too high on their priority list.
That kind of thinking is very middle class. Not everyone has to go to college and get an education. Plenty of people don’t and lead happy lives. I went to college and got a doctoral so I could get a job and support myself. Had I had a trust fund I would not be at my job.
He reminds me of Chet Hanks and I just can’t with his grillz.🙄
That photo is gross.
I actually had to go look this up, because I couldn’t believe he turned down a contract with Arsenal “for music”. Turns out it’s “Arsenal Academy”.
Anywho, he looks scuzzy in these photos.
That difference … seems important. Even if the Academy is super prestigious dropping it from the write-up is some serious nepotism boosterism.
Gross.
1) Ew. Pedo bait.
2) All of their children are aggressively ordinary.
3) Wow, must be nice to have that level of privilege. To wake up every Sunday and be like, ‘Oh, this week I think I’d like to be a footballer with one of the world’s most elite clubs’, ‘This week I’d like to be a famous musician’. Then be gently placed atop the highest heights of success without any discernable talent or hard work.
Then get bored and flick it all off when millions of truly talented and hardworking people have to fight tooth and nail to even get a shot at the bottom rung.
The way this was covered was very good. The headline was about something related to the interview, rather than something cringey that basically screams, “Look fellow adults, let’s get INTO IT about a teen’s sexuality!” More websites should handle stories involving kids and teens with this kind of sensitivity.
The general reactions to his pictures were, for the most part, much more balanced and safe than they would have been if Cruz had been a girl. People are saying they wouldn’t feel comfortable letting a teenage son pose on the cover of a magazine in his underwear, but they’re not abusing him over this. No dehumanizing, sexualized slurs or insults. No directly or indirectly making him complicit in any future crimes toward himself or others based on the way he looks here. No Qanon conspiracy theories promoted in liberal spaces about him. He’s not being compared to dangerous and/or stigmatized famous older members of his sex in the public eye. If or when he eventually does something annoying or gets caught making mistakes, this won’t be a factor in people’s reactions. He also will never experience racial gaslighting about why he isn’t conservative enough and what kind of representation he’s supposed to be providing. It’s not that we need to start treating young males as badly as young females have been treated, it’s the other way around.
He’s just a child, but he looks like a cross between Nicholas Hoult and Justin Bieber, at least this nepotism baby might be capable of a modeling career as he’s far cuter than his nepo big brother.
Sorry, but this is f*cking embarrassing. Classic example of two hardworking parents who have made a sh*t-ton of money and the kids don’t have the same work ethic because they’ve had it too easy. Go to university, get an education, work hard like your parents, don’t succumb to this cheap and quite frankly vulgar media show of teenage male sexuality. I expected better from the Beckham’s kids and from their parents.
Wait, is that eyebrow patch of bald genetic?!?
Maybe I’m also showing my age because to me these photos looks ridiculous. This teen with hands on his junk, half-naked, with grills, trying (and failing) to look ‘tough’ as if he isn’t a nepotism kid covering a magazine and promoting himself without even having a career yet. He looks like the british version of Justin Bieber, and I don’t know if that’s a compliment for him (not for me).
Creepy.