Brooklyn Beckham admitted he quit football after realising that living up to David Beckham’s career would be “difficult”.
The 23-year-old budding chef, who has undergone a series of career changes in recent years, suggested the pressure to follow in his dad’s footsteps had been testing.
Speaking to Variety, Beckham admitted that he was “sad” to hang up his football boots at the time, however, his dad was supportive.
“My dad wasn’t sad, because he was like, ‘I just want you to be happy.’ But of course I was sad. It was my whole life since I was literally two,” Beckham explained.
He added: “To try and live up to what my dad did in football, I was just like, ‘that’s going to be a bit difficult.’”
Beckham had played for Arsenal’s youth academy before he was released by the club when he was 16.
David, who was one of the most influential midfielders of his generation, has previously spoken about the conversation he had with his son over the future of his footballing career.
The dad-of-four told ABC in 2015: “It broke my heart a little bit. He said, ‘Every time I step on to the field, I know people are saying, This is David Beckham’s son,’ and if I am not as good as you, then it is not good enough.’”
With the full support of his family, Beckham left football behind to pursue other career moves.
Throughout the next few years, Beckham tried his hand at modelling and found a love for photography. However, Beckham has since admitted that it’s now just a “hobby.”
He added:“I still have all my film cameras, but now it’s just more of a fun thing to do. They were kind of all hobbies. I was still trying to find that one thing I would literally die for, and I found that with cooking.”
His latest passion has been in the kitchen, and thanks to support from his wife Nicola Peltz, he even launched his own cooking series called Cookin’ with Brooklyn.
At the end of his interview with Variety, he admitted he was “happy” to be the first in his family to choose cooking as a career choice.
“I always say to my wife, I wonder what our kids are going to want to love to do. But I’m so happy that I’m the first Peltz Beckham to do cooking — the first one in my family to do it,” he said.
