David Beckham was in tears as he recalled he and his wife Victoria Beckham were "drowning" amid the difficult period they faced in 2003 when reports of the footballer's alleged affair came to light.
The former England captain was discussing the harrowing time in his brutally honest new Netflix documentary, Beckham, when he was overcome with emotion. At the time, David and Victoria's marriage was in the papers relentlessly after he was accused of having an affair with his former personal assistant Rebecca Loos.
Holding back the tears, David, 48, began telling the camera and docuseries director, Fisher Stevens: "When I first moved to Spain, it was difficult because I had been part of a club and a family for my whole career, from the age of 15 until I was 27 years old. I get sold overnight, the next minute I'm in a city, I don't speak the language. More importantly, I didn't have my family."
"Up until Madrid sometimes it felt like us against everybody else. But we were together, we were connected, we had each other. But when we were in Spain, it didn't really feel like we had each other either. And that's sad."
David added: "Every time we woke up we felt like there was something else and we felt that we were not losing each other but drowning."
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At this point in the series' fourth episode, the sportsman was overcome with emotion and tears after being asked by Fisher Stevens how he and Victoria made it through that period. After taking a few beats to think, David responded: "I don't know. I don't know how we got through it, in all honesty."
Through tears, he continued: "Victoria is everything to me. To see her hurt was incredibly difficult. But we're fighters and at that time we needed to fight for each other, we needed to fight for our family. And what we had, was worth fighting for. But ultimately, it's our private life."
David then explained how the turbulent time affected his career, which was on an upwards trajectory after being sold to Real Madrid for 37 million euros on a four-year contract.
"There would be some days where I'd wake up and think, 'How am I going to go to work? How am I going to walk onto that pitch? How am I going to look as if nothing's wrong? I felt physically sick every day when I opened my eyes."
In another emotional moment in the documentary, the pair, who are parents to Brooklyn, 24, Romeo, 21, Cruz, 18, and Harper, 12, speak candidly about how their eldest son, who was five years old at the time, was affected.
Victoria told the camera: "It was very difficult for Brooklyn because he was older, and he had photographers screaming things. They used to scream things to Brooklyn about his mum and his dad."
David added: "Brooklyn at the time was so young. He had to go through that and I don't know whether it's harmed him. I don't know, I don't know."