Victoria Beckham has hit out at her critics over furloughing her staff, amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The 46-year-old made headlines last week after reports emerged claiming that she had put 25 members of her VB fashion label staff on the government scheme, in a bid to help her business survive.
However, she faced a wave of backlash over the move, with many hitting out at her decision.
And the Spice Girls star has now branded the fury levelled against her ‘unfair’.
‘Victoria’s telling friends that despite it being her birthday, it’s been the “worst week”,’ an insider claimed.
‘She’s really upset and doesn’t think it’s fair she’s getting slammed for something a lot of companies and businesses are doing.
‘She thinks it’s unfair and had no idea the backlash would be this bad,’ they added to the Sun.
Victoria has offered the furloughed staff ‘enhanced packages’ during this difficult time, and has ‘forgone her own salary’, the publication states.
A spokesperson for the mum-of-four said: ‘We are working hard to ensure our much-valued VB team are protected by keeping our business healthy.
‘Having carefully assessed all our options, we made the decision to furlough a proportion of staff on an enhanced package.’
Piers Morgan was among those blasting Victoria’s actions – which came shortly after she appeared on One World: Together At Home to raise money for healthcare workers and those on the front line.
Venting his anger on Twitter, the Good Morning Britain star fumed: ‘Sorry, but this makes me puke. If you care this much about the NHS, @victoriabeckham – then why are you taking taxpayer money the NHS desperately needs – and you DON’T need – to furlough your staff & prop up your failing business?’
In a rant on Good Morning Britain, he added: ‘Sorry, this furlough scheme was not for primadonna multi-millionaires like you two.
’Running a famed vanity business that makes no money.’
‘If you’re going to go on national TV and say the NHS really means something to you, then why don’t you dip in your own pockets, rather than the taxpayer pockets?
‘As the taxpayer’s pockets should be going to the NHS.’
Money-saving expert Martin Lewis later jumped to Victoria’s defence, telling This Morning viewers: ‘What matters most is that the hard-working employees – whomever they work for, even if they work for somebody we don’t like, one of the big-name business people who are getting bad reps at the moment because they’re not doing the right thing – we need the employees to be furloughed.
‘Let’s not knock companies who are furloughing rather than making redundant.
‘Furloughing should not be seen as a bad thing and if we keep using that type of language then we’re going to start seeing more people on the dole queue, more people not going to be able to feed their families.
‘It’s more important we protect the employees.’
Metro.co.uk has contacted Victoria’s reps for a comment.
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