David Beckham has settled his lawsuit with F45 – the fitness company co-owned by actor Mark Wahlberg – after claiming he was left almost $11million out of pocket from a deal to act as an ambassador for the brand.
Soccer legend Beckham filed the $18.8m lawsuit back in October 2022, accusing F45 of breach of contract two years after he signed a promotional agreement with the company.
The suit, which demanded damages from Wahlberg’s Mark Wahlberg Investment Group as well as F45 founders Adam Gilchrist and Rob Deutsch, alleged that he did not receive owed compensation for his partnership with F45 after promoting his own range of personalized workouts through the brand.
As part of the deal, Beckham’s firm – David Beckham Ventures Ltd – claimed shares in the company were also promised in early 2022 – only to not be divulged until months later, by which time the price had plummeted from around $12 a share to $3 a share.
DBVL believed that delay cost the former England captain an estimated $10.8million in potential profit.
Yet seven months before the case was set to go to trial, Beckham’s lawyers have resolved their breach-of-contract lawsuit with Wahlberg and F45, according to People.
In a press release on Thursday, F45 is quoted as saying it has ‘reached an agreement resolving a prior lawsuit brought by DB Ventures Limited, which concerned an ambassadorial agreement for David Beckham.’
CEO of F45 Training Tom Dowd is also quoted as saying: ‘For a long time, F45 has been — and continues to be — a supporter of Beckham, as he has been for our brand, and are pleased to have reached a mutual business decision to resolve the matter.’
Dowd added: ‘We are excited about our future and the continued growth of our world-class fitness brands that generated robust total system-wide sales for April of $48.9 million.’
Beckham and Wahlberg – who bought a 36 per cent stake in F45 back in 2019 – became friends after the ex-Manchester United and Real Madrid star relocated to Los Angeles in 2007 when he joined Major League Soccer team LA Galaxy.
He agreed to become a global ambassador for F45 in November 2020 – before photographs showed him working out using branded equipment at one of its fitness centers.
Beckham also shared posts promoting the Australian company to his millions of followers on Instagram as part of the deal. Those posts have since been deleted.
He initially sued F45 along with golf legend Greg Norman back in 2022, only for California courts to reportedly rule that they had to file separate lawsuits.