Having spent years as a member of Harvey Weinstein’s PR team, Hollywood ‘attack dog’ publicist Matthew Hiltzik is, you could argue, a dab hand at handling a crisis.
So it made perfect sense that, when Nicola Peltz – the US heiress married to Brooklyn Beckham – found herself at war with her husband’s high-profile parents, David and Victoria, Hiltzik was seen as the right man to help her navigate the fallout.
With a little help from her father, the notoriously aggressive billionaire businessman Nelson Peltz, she secured his extremely expensive services last June.
And as the Beckhams continued to garner the lion’s share of public sympathy during the feud, Nicola set out to get even in the best way she knows how: by throwing money at the problem.
Hiltzik’s mission was to protect and restore the Peltzes’ reputation and to make sure the wider Peltz family, including Brooklyn, won the briefing war.
It wasn’t long before the claims being pushed out from Nicola and Brooklyn’s Californian camp began to escalate.
There were accusations of misogyny slung at the Beckhams, who have long blamed Nicola, 31, for the complete breakdown in relations with their eldest son.
Indeed, Nicola appeared furious when I wrote that Brooklyn, 26, had been nicknamed ‘The Hostage’ in the Beckham’s circles over claims that he is simply following her lead.
More recently, a story emerged from their shores that they had instructed their lawyers, London-based Schillings, to send David and Victoria a ‘cease and desist’ letter last summer, which requested that any contact between the warring parties should go through them.
But now, I can reveal, the conflict has become too much even for Hiltzik to bear. Seven months after engaging his services, the couple have parted ways with the publicist, with both sides claiming they ended the agreement.
Sources tell me it was Nelson who called time on the partnership after growing increasingly irate that his youngest daughter was continuing to be upset at her negative portrayal in the media. Nicola and Brooklyn are also insisting they let him go, I’m told.
Meanwhile, others say it was Hiltzik who walked away, having grown tired of Nicola using social media to antagonise her in-laws, including a post that saw her fawning over her mother, Claudia, on her birthday last week (the couple famously failed to attend any of the celebrations for David Beckham’s 50th birthday last year). Certainly some who know Nicola agree she is ‘extremely hard work’.
Whatever the truth, sources agree on one thing: it’s ‘a blow’ for Nicola and Brooklyn.
‘Matthew is no longer working with Nicola and Brooklyn,’ says my source. ‘It really is quite the blow for them, Nicola seemed to enjoy getting her feelings out there to the Press on the rift.
‘While many aren’t fond of Matthew’s fiery manner, he is used to a crisis, it is what he specialises in, so to not have him working with them anymore means that they are, arguably, in a much weaker situation.
‘From the outside Nicola had become quite forthright, if not a little obsessed, with getting back at David and Victoria.
‘But it has all got a bit pathetic now. It has become a bit of a “he said, she said” now. Nicola will never want anyone to think Hiltzik has left her. For her, and her father, coming out on top is a must.
‘Anyone who knows Hiltzik knows that by hiring him it
would have meant he would aggressively pressurise the media not to print anything anti Nicola or Brooklyn. It is a real statement that she wanted to bullishly lead the narrative.’
Hiltzik, who is based in New York, stopped representing Weinstein in 2005 and has long since washed his hands of the serial sex offender after he was jailed in 2018. The PR man has gone on to work with Justin Bieber, Johnny Depp and Sacha Baron Cohen.
Soon after Hiltzik parted company with the Beckham-Peltzes, Brooklyn shared a snap of himself and Nicola enjoying a glass of Victoria’s favourite £5,000 wine.
He treated his wife to the Screaming Eagle Sauvignon Blanc while celebrating her 31st birthday earlier last week.
One source said: ‘As a couple of nepo-babies who don’t really do a lot with their days or have really had a job they’ve had to graft at, they are desperately worried about their reputations, but then they post a picture of themselves sipping £5,000 wine.
‘Perhaps that’s the kind of thing that Matthew was getting fed up with – who knows?’
It was in April last year that I first revealed Brooklyn had fallen out with his parents after failing to attend any of his father’s 50th birthday celebrations.
Former England captain David, and fashion designer Victoria, 51, were left devastated – but placed the blame firmly at Nicola’s door.
Nicola, of course, denies this. Through Hiltzik, she briefed the media that Brooklyn could make his own decisions about the type of relationship he wanted to have with his parents.
But is evidence starting to emerge that perhaps Brooklyn is keener for a reconciliation than Nicola would have people believe?
A story briefed to the New York Post (by someone who I believe to be a very well-placed source) certainly suggests so.
They claimed that things had calmed recently before the incendiary story about the legal letter emerged.
And the insider, who is said to know the couple, told the publication: ‘Brooklyn wants to do anything to make Nicola happy, but this is all getting out of control. I can’t imagine a world where Brooklyn wouldn’t want to see his parents again.’
In the meantime, I’m told that David and Victoria have reluctantly accepted that Brooklyn, who was once so close to
them – and who appears to have named his hot sauce company, Cloud 23, after his father’s squad number at Real Madrid and LA Galaxy – does not want to see them at the moment.
But perhaps they now have a small glimmer of hope that, one day, he may return to them.
‘It is clear that Brooklyn is very keen to please Nicola but maybe, just maybe, he will at some point want to get back in touch with his parents,’ my source says. ‘Nothing would make them happier.’
