What Brooklyn Beckham Blames For Giving Up His Athletic Career

Brooklyn Beckham is many things. He's a photographer, a self-taught cook (let's not get ahead of ourselves with the chef title), a model, and even a published author. But what he isn't is a footballer like his dad, esteemed former athlete David Beckham. Despite being a Beckham himself, Brooklyn can't quite literally bend it like Beckham.

To be fair, it's not like he didn't try. Brooklyn had played soccer for most of his life. He joined the Arsenal Football Club Academy in his teens, but he was unsuccessful in his attempts to score a scholarship, according to Daily Mail. At that point, he had quit the sport altogether and decided to pursue other interests instead, which David supported wholeheartedly. "One of my boys turned around to me the other day and said, 'Daddy, I'm not sure I want to play football all the time,'" the retired footballer told ABC in 2015. "It broke my heart a little bit. He said, 'Every time I step on to the field, I know people are saying, This is David Beckham's son,' and if I am not as good as you, then it is not good enough.'"

While Brooklyn partly attributes his exit from the sports world to the expectations that come with being the son of a legend, he also blames something else: his zodiac sign. Apparently, being a Pisces has something to do with your ability to kick a ball across a field... Eh?

It may not entirely make sense, but the eldest kid of David and Victoria Beckham apparently believes that his zodiac sign has a cosmic connection to his football prowess. Speaking with Bustle, he explained why he turned his back on the sport that he played for years. "I'm a Pisces. Sensitive," he said. Well, okay, sure!

He reiterated in the same interview that he doesn't think he will ever be as good as his father — at least in football — so he quit to try his luck in a different field where he can make a mark without the looming shadows of his famous family. "I have a lot of anxiety," he added. "And to try and live up to what my dad did, it was just like, it got to the point where I was just, like, I really just want to make my own name for myself and work my a**e off."

Despite being at peace with his move, he admitted he felt a pinch of sadness. After all, he had known soccer ever since he was in diapers, so letting go proved challenging. "My dad wasn't sad, because he was like, I just want you to be happy," he told Variety. "But of course I was sad. It was my whole life since I was literally 2."

Brooklyn Beckham has made good with his word that he would try to carve his own path, and well, let's just say that some of his attempts weren't well-received. After quitting football, he started modeling, making a grand debut by gracing the cover of Man About Town magazine. He also became a spokesmodel for Reserve, and in 2021, he reportedly inked a £1 million (roughly $1.2 million) deal with the brand Superdry.

Brooklyn turned out to have a penchant for the arts, having enrolled in the Parsons School of Design to study photography, although he left after a year. It didn't stop him from publishing a book called "What I See" and getting a chance to photograph a Burberry campaign, much to the dismay of critics, who called all those opportunities a result of "sheer nepotism."

Presently, Brooklyn is keeping himself busy in the kitchen and running his show "Cookin' with Brooklyn," which is also ridiculed by both fans and professional chefs. But the eldest Beckham kid is taking it all in stride, telling Business Insider that he pays no mind to the noise. "To be honest, I'm used to the hate," he said. "Cooking makes me happy. I have more important things to worry about than people saying a little bit of rubbish about me." In the future, though, you can probably expect him to run his own British-inspired pub in Los Angeles. He told Variety: "I want to have so many TV shows, and hopefully one day open up a pub in L.A., because L.A. needs a pub."