How Brooklyn Beckham has failed to cash in on his famous surname: We reveal the verdict on his brand from insiders, eyebrow-raising plan for the future and why his family feud lays at the heart of his struggles

Whenever the cameras pick out Sir in the crowd at England’s World Cup fixtures in the US, the expression on his familiar features as England battle to progress could best be described as... tense.

Elsewhere, it’s fair to say, the 51-year-old former England captain has cut a more relaxed figure.

Across the host nation – and in one particular branch of an upmarket supermarket visited by this newspaper – his image could be seen beaming down from a prominent display by the Harris Teeter store’s entrance.

Surrounded by helium balloons, he is advertising Stella Artois lager. The brand is doing a FIFA World Cup promotion under the slogan: ‘Take home THE GOLD’ and he is the face of it.

It’s just one of a number of promotional activities undertaken by Sir David during the championship.

As eagle-eyed viewers will have spotted in the TV ad breaks, he is also selling Pepsi, Lay’s crisps, McDonald’s, Home Depot, Adidas and Verizon in deals which could make him up to £19million.

After all, it is off the pitch where the real money is made. And if your surname is Beckham, the sky’s the limit.

How curious then, that at the back of the same DC store, Beckham’s estranged son Brooklyn also features – though in a rather less prominent manner.

Brooklyn’s Cloud23 Sauce is on a ‘Clearance’ offer at $13.99 (around £10.50) – and being sold on a ‘Buy-one-get-one-free’ basis. Close inspection reveals the promo was meant to come to an end in May but is still going. Evidently, the supermarket hasn’t been able to shift the stock.

At another stockist, the premium Whole Foods stores, Cloud23 is available for the knockdown price of $7 (£5.24), in a seasonal offer which ends on July 7.

Discounts, deals and – as we shall see – extremely low web traffic mean 27-year-old Brooklyn’s fledgling brand does not appear to be flying.

And in a twist of irony that must hurt the nepo baby who has made such a point of trying to distance himself from his parents, it may be his family fallout which is at the root of his brand’s malaise.

Having declared to a marketing symposium in 2025 that he ‘wanted the sauce to speak for itself’, stressing ‘my name isn’t anywhere on the bottle’, this now appears to be his first big mistake.

Initially it was assumed the number 23 was a nod to his father’s shirt number at both Real Madrid and LA Galaxy but Brooklyn later appeared to distance himself even from that connection, saying: ‘The 23 stands for our engagement date [to now wife Nicola Peltz] and my age back then.’

According to industry insiders, it’s this reluctance to fully embrace the Beckham name which his parents have turned into an international brand which could be limiting sales.

‘One of the biggest missed opportunities was not making Brooklyn himself more central to the branding,’ says brand expert Nick Ede. ‘His name carries huge global recognition, but unless consumers already know the story, Cloud23 doesn’t immediately scream “Brooklyn Beckham”.’

The two sauces, hot habanero and sweet jalapeno, were launched in September 2024, at which point Brooklyn still had the full backing of his family. Dad David wrote on social media: ‘We are so proud of you Bust [short for Brooklyn’s family nickname Buster]. My new favourite hot sauce.’

And the whole family went to the Kensington, west London, branch of Whole Foods to support him. David and Victoria also travelled to the US for the American launch, despite there having already been a serious fallout around his wedding to Nicola in April 2022.

The Beckham clan dutifully smiled for the cameras, albeit a tad rigidly, and everyone waited for the money to roll in. But the hot sauce market is competitive. Even with the input of billionaire father-in-law Nelson Peltz, who made his fortune in food, there are signs of retrenchment and reverses. Brooklyn, it seems, has sadly not inherited his father’s almost magical ability to sell, sell sell.

He spoke back in 2025 that he hoped to launch a lasting ‘pantry’ brand to pass on to his children.

But less than two years on from the launch, he admitted last month: ‘I didn’t really know what I was getting into when I was creating this. There have been a lot of ups and a lot of downs. There are things we’ve had to figure out. I’m still learning every single day.’

So what of sales? It looks as though a white flag is already being waved in the UK. Although Cloud23 is still stocked in Whole Foods, that amounts to just 12 stores across the country.