All across social media yesterday, a bizarre rumour emerged that David and Victoria Beckham were putting an end to their 19-year marriage after the England footballer supposedly had an affair. Allegedly, the whispers said, the 43-year-old England football star had cheated on his wife with one of his children's schoolteachers, and a resulting pregnancy had forced the two to part ways.
Twitter was on fire with baseless hearsay, news outlets were poised to break the story as soon as it was either confirmed or denied, and - all across the UK - bookkeepers were taking bets on whether or not Posh and Becks' marriage would survive the day. So many people bet in favour of the separation, in fact, that bookkeepers stopped accepting bids - and that, of course, caused even further speculation.
"We’ve decided to suspend betting on the separation between Posh and Becks," a spokesman for UK betting company Paddy Power said.
Amidst all this commotion, though, the Beckhams stayed strangely quiet, with neither of them hopping on to social media in order to let everyone know what was actually happening. Now, however, they've spoken up - and it doesn't sound like they're particularly happy about what's happened.
"There is no statement due, no divorce, and a lot of Chinese whispers and fake social media news," a spokesperson for the couple said. "This is all very bizarre and an embarrassing waste of time."
What's more, it's not entirely clear where the false news first originated from, as all recent social media posts from both David and Victoria imply that the couple are still very happy together. In fact, yesterday morning - just hours before the first false reports started spreading, the former Spice Girl shared a smiling picture of herself with her daughter, Harper, captioning it: "Morning cuddles x So much love. We love and miss u @davidbeckham".
Plus, the couple were seen together not that long ago at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, and nothing appeared to be amiss on that occasion.
Throughout their two-decade-long union, Victoria has continually voiced her support for her husband - even after previous cheating rumours surfaced. In 2016, for instance, she penned this letter to her 18-year-old self in an edition of Vogue, which appears to show that she has nothing but affection for her husband:
"While the other football players stand at the bar drinking with their mates, you will see David standing aside with his family. (He's not even in the first team at this stage—you are the famous one.) And he has such a cute smile. You, too, are close to your family, and you will think how similar he feels to you. He's going to ask for your number. (He still has the London-to-Manchester plane ticket on which you wrote it.)"
For now then, at least, it appears that the UK's most iconic celebrity couple aren't going anywhere - and fans are very happy to hear it.
