When Nicola Peltz began dating her much younger boyfriend Anwar Hadid, she wasted no time getting to know his family.
Just 17 to her 22 years when they got together in 2017, Nicola, then an aspiring actress, soon ensured she became ‘besties’ with his mum, Yolanda – who was then the stand-out star of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills – as well as his big sisters, supermodels Bella and Gigi.
As a brand, you couldn’t get much bigger than the Hadids, which for ambitious starlet Nicola was rather useful.
It wasn’t long until the billionaire heiress and youngest daughter of US tycoon Nelson Peltz was posing on the red carpet alongside Bella and Gigi, who at the time were the most in demand catwalk stars in the world.
There were many Instagram posts devoted to Nicola’s growing bond with the Hadids – one notable photograph shows Nicola and Yolanda smiling as they wore matching blue towels on their heads.
‘My ladies,’ wrote a devoted Anwar, who had just been named the face of Hugo Boss menswear’s HUGO line and was a successful model, like his older siblings.
Sure enough, thanks to messages like these, Nicola’s public profile went through the roof.
It doesn’t, then, take much to see the similarities between her relationship with Anwar and her relationship with Brooklyn Beckham. Indeed, one could argue that her first serious relationship – she and Anwar dated for more than 18 months – reveals just what makes Nicola Peltz tick.
Nicola Peltz, now 30, dated Anwar Hadid, now 25,from 2016 to 2018. This was shortly after she moved out from her billionaire parents £76million Florida mansion to try her luck in Hollywood
Brooklyn Beckham and wife Nicola pulled out of attending this year’s Met Gala (pictured at the event in New York 2022)
For just like her husband, Brooklyn Beckham, who is four years her junior, Anwar was younger, easily swayed and happy to act as arm candy for Nicola.
With a significant Instagram presence, Anwar helped Nicola become a ‘name’ – while his smitten social media posts no doubt boosted a rapidly growing ego.
The similarities between Nicola’s two major relationships do not end there, however.
For in her tumultuous relationship with Yolanda Hadid, one can spot the future seeds of her troubled dealings with her mother-in-law, Victoria Beckham.
Relations between the two women have broken down entirely after neither Nicola nor Brooklyn attended a single one of his father David’s series of 50th birthday celebrations this week.
For I can reveal that towards the end of Nicola’s relationship with Anwar, any good feelings had evaporated between her and the Hadids.
Sources tell me that Anwar’s mother and sisters were worried he was becoming increasingly unhappy in his relationship and they were keen for him to get out of it quickly.
‘The age difference bothered them,’ said one source. ‘And so did Nicola’s strong personality. It had started so well but they later began to no longer think the relationship was the best idea for Anwar.
‘That led to some conversations between Anwar and the family. They feared he was struggling, going out with a woman who was older than him at such a formative time in his life.’
So there we have it: a concerned mother; a starry-eyed, besotted son – and a headstrong wannabe actress. Sound familiar?
No wonder some are suggesting that Nicola’s relationship with Anwar eight years ago may simply be repeating itself today.
One source tells me: ‘There seems to be something about Nicola and very famous families, especially those with huge social media followings, and it doesn’t seem to matter if they are younger. Anwar was only 17 when Nicola started going out with him.
‘The Hadids are a huge American brand and to date Bella and Gigi’s younger brother would have been a coup for Nicola.
‘She was trying to make it in Hollywood and a high profile boyfriend wasn’t going to do her any harm when it came to column inches or Instagram followers.’
When Nicola met the Hadids, she was filming the pilot for a television thriller called When The Streetlights Go On for the US network Hulu.
She was cast as Chrissy Monroe, a young woman who was struggling with addiction and had a troubled life, but was also supposed to be the ‘perfect daughter’.
The programme made nothing more than a minor dent in the headlines and viewing figures were mediocre.
Without doubt, it was Anwar who raised Nicola’s profile, shortly after she moved out from her billionaire parents Nelson and Claudia’s £76million Florida mansion to try her luck in Hollywood.
She quickly ingratiated herself with the Hadids, and would speak glowingly about her new clan.
It sadly looks today as though the famously tight-knit Beckhams have been torn asunder
Nicola says she idolises her investment titan father Nelson, 82, and her mother Claudia, 70, a former model
In one interview she said of Anwar: ‘Honestly, he is an angel. He’s such an amazing person. He comes from such an amazing family. Gigi and Bella are so, so sweet.
‘I just love his family so much. They’re feminine, strong girls. To have that around is amazing.’
It was not to last. After a year of dating, the couple split in May 2018 with Nicola’s representative insisting that the separation was amicable.
However, the following month the death knell for the once strong bond between Nicola and the Hadid women was sounded when Nicola suddenly unfollowed the entire family on Instgram.
She began dating Brooklyn in October 2019 after meeting him at a Halloween party at the Standard hotel in Hollywood.
They went ‘Instagram official’ in January 2020 and married in an extravagant £3 million Palm Beach ceremony, held at the Peltz’s beachside property in Florida, in April 2022.
But where Anwar’s relationship with his own family survived his romance with Nicola, it sadly looks today as though the famously tight-knit Beckhams have been torn asunder.
Not only were the couple a no-show at David’s pre-birthday bash in Miami in March, but Brooklyn didn’t join his father and two brothers, Romeo and Cruz, for their family fishing trip to the Scottish Highlands, nor the big family party at the Beckhams’ £10 million Cotswolds home, their idyllic jaunt to France nor the lavish meal at Notting Hill restaurant, Core.
Such behaviour has enraged Victoria and David, who fear their idealistic and romantic son is being controlled by his wife.
Nicola, in turn, has insisted she and Brooklyn attempted to see the couple alone to celebrate David’s birthday – indicating that she may not feel comfortable around Romeo’s girlfriend
Kim Turnbull on account of the fact that Kim was once friendly with Brooklyn.
I’m told David and Victoria are ‘done’ with their daughter-in-law. This, by tragic default, must mean they expect to be estranged from Brooklyn for the foreseeable future as he lives his life in Los Angeles with his wife.
Their marriage may only be three years old, but there have certainly been rifts aplenty.
Famously, Nicola and Victoria spectacularly fell out in the run-up to the wedding following a row over her dress. The bride expected Posh to make it for her and was said to be let down when she didn’t.
However, after 18 months of little contact, the two women made up and were close for a short time.
Some view the fallout between the pair as a clash between two equally strong women. And certainly, Nicola’s upbringing instilled this grit within her. Born in Westchester, New York, to billionaire businessman Nelson Peltz and his former model wife, Claudia, she attended Rye Country Day school where annual fees can reach $50,000 (£37,500) per year.
She split her childhood between her family’s 130-acre estate on Palm Beach and a 27-bedroom mansion in Bedford, New York owned by Nelson, who claims to have ‘match made’ Donald Trump with Elon Musk.
By the age of 12, aspiring actress Nicola had an agent and a year later was starring in a Manhattan Theatre Club production of Blackbird before making her film debut in a Christmas comedy called Deck The Halls.
In 2008 she appeared in another comedy film, Harold, and later that year she starred in the music video for Miley Cyrus’s hit single 7 Things.
Previous reports have indicated Nicola would fib on her acting CV, listing elaborate talents – among them bungee jumping, something she later admitted to only doing once in a shopping mall.
Some unkind Hollywood insiders describe Nicola as a ‘nepo’ who was given an ‘obvious leg up’
by her father’s wealth and connections (at one time, Nelson held $3.5billion – £2.6billion – in stock in Disney, for example).
But there have been a few meatier roles, including playing a tragic model and stripper in the Disney+ drama Welcome To Chippendales, based on a true story, and a part in one of the Transformers films.
However, she was not universally adored in Hollywood where, since dating Brooklyn, she has fired several agents.
‘Nicola’s behaviour has enraged Victoria (pictured together at 2024 Lola premiere) who fears their idealistic and romantic son is being controlled by his wife,’ writes Katie Hind
She was previously signed to William Morris Endeavour, a top US showbusiness agency which represents stars such as Matt Damon and Jennifer Garner, but fired them – a decision sources say was attributed to them not getting her enough work.
She also joined Megan Silverman, a well-known agent, but parted company with her. Today, she is with the Gersh agency who also represent former EastEnders actor Rob Kazinsky.
‘She has been through quite a few agents, as well as PRs,’ says one source who knows Nicola.
‘She has a tendency not to want to listen to what they say or advise her to do.
‘It’s a case of her knowing better than the experts and that doesn’t quite work in Hollywood. It doesn’t help one’s popularity, that’s for sure.’
Undoubtedly, Nicola has a taste for the finer things in life.
In May 2022, she and Brooklyn put their £9million mansion in Los Angeles – their first home together – on the market because it ‘wasn’t big enough for them’. Having bought the five-bedroom, five-bathroom property just the year before, they traded it in for a £22 million mansion in Beverly Hills.
I’m told that this decision ‘very much raised the eyebrows’ of Brooklyn’s parents David and Victoria, who despite their own wealth have always taught their four children the value of money.
One friend says: ‘Of course you can’t just blame her, it was Brooklyn’s house, too – but he has never been quite as flash as her.
‘Imagine a £9 million home not being quite right for you, not big enough.
‘We all know LA is expensive, but it was just ridiculous.’
Those who know Nicola say it was growing up in the Peltz household – where all ten children were encouraged to play ice hockey – that made her the tough woman she is today.
Nelson once said of his brood: ‘My kids are exhausted every day, and I keep them that way. It’s gym, ice, homework. They’re too tired to get in trouble.’
While Nicola’s brother Brad is a successful ice hockey player, and her older sister Brittany an impressive figure skater, it was always her ambition to follow her mum Claudia, her father’s third wife and a former fashion model, into a more glamorous industry.
‘Claudia was big in the 1970s when it was tough being a woman in the film and fashion worlds,’ said one friend of the family.
‘It was the era of the casting couch and women had to be really hard, which Claudia is.
‘You only have to look at her mother to see where Nicola gets this really tough exterior from.’
As only one of two sisters – Brittany, 33, owns a lifestyle company and is, I’m told, ‘very different’ to her younger sister – Nicola was more often than not the centre of attention.
‘Nicola got all the attention from her brothers,’ says a source. ‘She has the whole youngest girl thing going on.’
There was a time, too, when Nicola enjoyed being part of the Beckhams’ smaller family – and would particularly enjoy playing big sister to Harper – something she never experienced growing up.
But no more.
Says the same source: ‘Nicola seems to just want to be with her own family rather than the Beckhams. The terribly sad thing is that Brooklyn is following suit.’
