After a concerted social media campaign Victoria Beckham’s Not Such an Innocent Girl appears to have outsold every other single in the UK this week – but it’s still nowhere to be seen in the Official UK Chart
As the bitter feud between Brooklyn Beckham and his parents continues to dominate headlines not just in the UK but around the world, a grassroots campaign has been launched to push Victoria Beckham’s 2001 single Not Such an Innocent Girl back into the singles chart.
The campaign’s goal was to “fix the national tragedy” that Victoria Beckham is the only member of the Spice Girls never to have scored a solo chart-topper. It began with a post reading: “Nothing says ‘British Culture’ like collectively deciding to send Posh to the top of the charts because her son roasted her on Insta.”
The effort gained significant momentum after comedian Katherine Ryan shared the post. Despite a surge in sales and streams—up 19,615% week-on-week—the single did not return to the official UK Top 100.
Confusingly, Not Such an Innocent Girl did reach the top of two fringe charts: the Official Singles Sales chart and the Official Download chart, yet it was absent from Friday’s official chart rundown.
A spokesperson from The Official Charts Company explained to the Mirror: “The singles market today is predominantly streaming driven, so a track that is selling well doesn’t automatically place in the overall chart unless it’s also doing impactful streaming numbers.”
The spokesperson added: “[Victoria Beckham] has the best seller of the week, hence why you’ll see it’s Number 1 on the pure sales-based rankings of the Official Download Chart and Official Singles Sales Chart. Its success this week has been mostly down to fan-driven downloads.”
Exact sales figures for Victoria’s single have not been disclosed, but Myles Smith earned the No.100 spot by shifting 5,258 combined units for his 2024 single Stargazing this week.
Paul Scaife, who runs industry insiders’ resource Record Of The Day, told the Mirror: “The reality with the iTunes chart, especially specialist ones, is that it simply doesn’t take much sales to make an impact. Any appearance may be a brief spike too.”
He added: “We were joking in the office Brooklyn should get behind Groovejet and have a rerun of the chart battle.”
Victoria’s single was originally released on 17 September 2001, launching a chart battle with Kylie Minogue’s eventual No.1 Can’t Get You Out of My Head. It was one of only three singles Posh released before transitioning from pop to fashion design.
Her pop career faltered after her record label collapsed, leaving two fully recorded albums unreleased. Unlike any video of the alleged “inappropriate” dancing that sparked her very public dispute with Brooklyn and his wife Nicola Peltz, both recordings later leaked online.
Music journalist Caroline Sullivan, author of several books on pop, including a bestselling Taylor Swift biography, told us the surge in sales shows public sympathy for Victoria: “Victoria doesn’t have a great voice—which she herself admits—but there’s a lot of affection for her among Millennials, and they’re on her side in the Brooklyn/Beckhams dispute, so buying her single is a quick way to show that support.”
While neither Victoria nor David Beckham have commented publicly on her chart success—or the argument that drove it—it is not thought that any new Victoria Beckham recordings are likely to be released.
