By Ian Gallagher. Rebecca Loos seesaws between irritation and jaw-tensing annoyance as she watches David Beckham on Netflix recalling the aftermath of their affair. The former England captain speaks haltingly as if every well-chosen word requires careful extraction. It is almost 20 years since his former aide detonated a media frenzy like no other when she went public with details of their relationship. So not for a second did she think he would address the subject β albeit obliquely β after so long.
Rebecca, 47, shakes her head. Sometimes he secretly tried to hold her hand as they motored through Madrid. Ms Loos claims to of had an affair with the football ace. To her mind, it was buried. Long since happily married with two children, she has lived for the past 14 years in blissful obscurity in Norway where she teaches yoga and works as a medical assistant.
Not with married men as famous as Beckham though. Now, because of the documentary, she has been dragged back into the limelight. And despite living in the mountains, she is not beyond harassment, though reflecting different times, it now takes a new form β vicious trolling on social media. He laments the intense pressure placed on their marriage. And so the tightly-controlled film, made by his own production company, goes on, asking of Beckham no awkward questions but bathing him in a warm, sympathy-inducing glow.
His eyes moisten. Rebecca has seen enough and turns away. This in fact is her second viewing. They visited bars in the trendy Chueca district 'and we had the best croquetas in the city at a tapas place'. And so many people had forgotten about all of this. So many people put all this behind them, this whole affair, the scandal and everything.
That bothered me. Beckham was depicted as the paragon not just of football but of fidelity, the loving family man who exemplified 21st Century masculinity. For a while the story reverberated across the world, posing an existential threat to Brand Beckham of which Posh Spice, of course, was the other half. Only a few months earlier the midfielder had signed for Real Madrid and Rebecca, then 26, beautiful and unattached, was appointed his Girl Friday or client services manager as she was officially billed.
