David Beckham’s documentary on Netflix, Beckham, is an all-access look at the tumultuous life of one of England’s greatest-ever footballers. The midfielder turned model turned brand gives viewers a look into his past, present and future as they are taken from Manchester United to his garden to the pitch at Inter Miami. Beckham touches upon mental health in the documentary and has recently underscored the importance of the matter.
“I grew up in an era where, you know, mental health wasn’t really talked about,” he said, “And I suppose is the one thing I take from this documentary is how important mental health is.”
In the documentary, Beckham reflects on the mental health landscape a couple of decades ago compared to how it is now. Beckham was no stranger to conflict that could trigger an emotional reaction, as his sending off in the World Cup resulted in death threats, people burning dummies of him and receiving bullets in the post.
“Twenty years ago, people wasn’t talking about or asking, ‘Are you okay?’ Or ‘How do you feel?’” He continued, “Now, thankfully, people are talking about it. So that’s the one [thing] that I can take from being able to talk about this.”
It seems that taking part in the documentary has acted as its own form of therapy for Beckham, as a lot of how he was feeling and the circumstances that led to those emotions are discussed in the open for the first time. “It gave me closure,” he said, “Because I still feel pain from the most moments. But it made me feel better about those moments.”
It wasn’t just Beckham who had a revelation thanks to the documentary, either. His mother was made aware of some of her son’s feelings for the first time, and she spoke to him after watching. “She came up to me, she said, ‘You don’t have to feel bad’, and that, obviously, made me emotional as well.”
Beckham is now available to stream on Netflix.
