Victoria Beckham arrived in London to be with reunited with husband David Beckham after his father suffered a heart attack.
She flew in from Tokyo to Paris on a scheduled flight after abandoning a tour to promote her make-up range, and was seen arriving at the London Chest Hospital with David at around 11am.
Victoria flew into London from Paris by private jet to meet husband David who arrived yesterday from Los Angeles to be with his father Ted Beckham.
Ted, 59, is being treated at the London Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green. His condition today is described as stable.
David, 32, jumped on a plane in Los Angeles as soon as he heard of his father’s illness. David Beckham sobbed uncontrollably as he was reunited with his estranged father at his hospital bedside.
The footballer made a dramatic mercy dash from Los Angeles when he learned Ted, 59, was fighting for his life after a major heart attack.
He landed at Heathrow at noon and raced across the capital to be at his father’s side as he came round from life-saving surgery.
And as Ted drifted in and out of consciousness at the London Chest Hospital, in Bethnal Green, Beckham, 32, appeared to be overcome.
He broke down and visibly wept whilst cradling his father’s hands in his own.
The pair have not been close since Ted and David’s mother Sandra went through a bitter divorce in 2002.
Friends and family described David as being “in a state of shock” about the heart attack because he thought his father had been in such good health.
One family member told the Daily Mail last night how David has blamed himself for the sudden deterioration in his father’s health.
He is said to feel the estrangement - and the fact that he worked so hard in his job and would stubbornly refuse hand-outs of his son’s money - had taken a toll on his health.
Reports that they had recently reconciled are understood to be wide of the mark.
The former England captain caught the first flight from California after learning that his father had “died” in the back of an ambulance on Wednesday night and that paramedics battled for three hours to save him.
Ted had surgery yesterday morning at the London Chest Hospital where he is being treated by the country’s top heart specialists.
His son arrived as he was still “groggy” after a general anaesthetic.
But by mid-afternoon Ted, a self-employed gas engineer who has a history of angina, gradually returned to consciousness and was “chatting with his family”.
One family member described how he had “already got his sense of humour back” and had been joking about “having eaten his last ever fry-up”.
During the overnight British Airways flight from California, David - who plays for LA Galaxy - had been in tears as he spoke on the telephone to his sister Joanne at the hospital and his wife Victoria, who yesterday cancelled a major promotional campaign in Japan to fly to London to support him.
A family member said: “David has been saying ‘It’s not because he’s a big drinker - it’s because he works all the hours God sends.
“His dream has been to have a small apartment in Spain. Why didn’t I just buy him one for Christ’s sake? It could have saved him getting ill. The problem is he’s so bloody independent.’”
The family member continued: “Since he found out, David has been rambling and in a state of shock. He really feels he has really let his father down.
“He feels he’s not been there for his father in years. Ted has been lonely, that’s the problem. He depends on Lynne (David’s sister) and her children for comfort.
“With David living even further away, he feels he’s made it much worse for his father.
“Worse still, David’s mum Sandra has frequently been over to the new house in LA - and Ted has not been once.
“He feels he’s really been a bad son to Ted recently and he has been saying that’s probably put a great strain on him - and on his heart.”
Ted Beckham: Now stable after heart attack
The family member added: “He was saying all this to Victoria over the phone and she kept saying to him that he had his own family to think about and he’d tried his best.
“David has been saying he’s going to sort his dad out when he pulls through this and make sure he’s living a healthier life, whatever it takes, financially.
“He wants his dad to be around for the next baby.”
Ted has had a tense relationship with the soccer star since he divorced from his mother in 2002. That situation was not helped when he wrote a book in 2005 about David’s rise to fame.
It is understod that Ted became even more unwelcome over the period when David’s marriage to Victoria went through its most difficult time amid allegations that he had an affair with Rebecca Loos, a PA helping him with his move to Real Madrid.
Ted is understood not to have been the most supportive of Victoria at the time and encouraged his son to lead a life which makes him happy - whether it included Victoria or not.
Since that time, it is said, Ted has been persona non grata in the Beckham household.
Despite the tensions, Victoria is heading to London, and was seen at 4am this morning boarding a private jet at Le Bourget in France, to join her husband.