A message from one of David Beckham’s bodyguards pinged Rebecca Loos’ cell phone: “Are you texting David?” This caught her off guard in the middle of their affair in 2003 – something the bodyguard didn’t miss. Rebecca was actually texting David at that moment.
What happened next, which she’s revealing for the first time today, marked what she calls a “significant” moment in their short relationship.
She tells The Mail on Sunday: “We were texting and it got naughty, it was fun… then suddenly I get a text from the Spanish bodyguard.” It said: “Stop. He shows it to his friends and everyone laughs.”
Suddenly the charming English captain didn’t seem quite so gallant anymore. “I saw him differently now,” says Rebecca, who was his personal assistant at the time.
Rebecca finally decided to go public when she graphically described how she had slept with Beckham at least four times. Pictured: Rebecca Loos in London, 2008
A source confirmed Ms Loos’ report to the Mail on Sunday that David Beckham was showing his friends news at a nightclub. Pictured: Rebecca Loos and David Beckham in a nightclub in Madrid
“He made me feel special, but I never wanted him to leave his wife and get with me…After I found out what he was like, I never wanted to be with someone like that anyway.”
“I was very hurt and that hurt and pain caused me to become laissez-faire and not give a shit about keeping this big secret for him when he treats me like that.”
A source once close to Beckham’s entourage in Madrid confirmed Rebecca’s account, telling The Mail on Sunday: “He showed the news to his friends in a nightclub.” It was around 4am.
“Some of these friends came from England. I remember the bodyguard warning Rebecca about what was going on.’
Due to rumors about their relationship, Beckham did not renew his contract with SFX, the global management company that employed Rebecca. She was asked if she wanted to work in the London office: “I already had a lot to do with the sports industry.”
She added: “It was a sad time, this job was the highlight of my career.”
The affair with Beckham ended shortly afterwards.
Rebecca Loos, pictured, now lives in Norway and worked with David Beckham in 2003
Ms Loos’ father is diplomat Leendert Willem Alberto Loos and is Dutch-Swiss, while his wife Elizabeth is Anglo-Spanish
However, it would be several months before Rebecca finally decided to go public as she graphically described how she had slept with Beckham at least four times.
About that time she says today: “I didn’t know what I was getting myself into – I hadn’t even heard the term kiss and tell.”
This may raise eyebrows in some circles, but few could doubt that Rebecca is atypical for the kiss-and-tell club. She is reluctant to reveal what her respected family made of it.
Her diplomat father Leendert Willem Alberto Loos is Dutch-Swiss and his wife Elizabeth is Anglo-Spanish.
At the time of the affair, Rebecca was living with her parents in the sprawling seven-bedroom villa in one of the Spanish capital’s most exclusive suburbs.
Rebecca was born in a convent in Madrid and later moved with her parents, older brother and younger sister to Notting Hill, west London, where she attended Bassett House preparatory school. Her childhood was idyllic.
Her mother instilled a love of culture in all of her children, and Rebecca remembers days wandering through galleries and museums.
Before she returned to Madrid at the age of eleven, they lived in The Hague in the Netherlands.
Several defining moments, she says, emerged from her youth. Other memories underscore things she now knows are true about herself.
She remembers weekly lessons with a Dutch teacher when she was eight or nine years old. “I went to her house to take additional classes. Then one evening she called my mother and asked if I had taken the teacher’s gold bracelet.
“My parents sat me down and gently asked if I had it. I said I hadn’t brought it with me – and the woman found it in her house a few weeks later. I never went back.’
Her thoughts returned to this incident, which gave her a strong feeling of injustice, when she saw David Beckham on Netflix indirectly casting doubt on her story, as she says.
In the picture, Victoria Beckham goes shopping with her son Romeo and Rebecca Loos in Madrid in September 2003
In the picture, David Beckham is driving through Madrid with Rebecca Loos in the passenger seat
“I’ve never been afraid to speak up or stand up for myself, especially when something isn’t right,” she explains. “It comes from my childhood.”
In Madrid, she was educated at the country’s most exclusive and expensive school, Runny-mede College, where she enjoyed being the center of attention and her exhibitionist streak extended to family photos.
“I was known for having sweethearts in them,” she laughs. Perhaps, she muses, she inherited her desire for the limelight from her Swiss grandmother, an opera singer.
At the same time, she wanted to fit in and “be like her Spanish friends,” which meant taking classes in the Catholic Church.
She attended catechism class every Wednesday after school and remembers bombarding the priest with “too many questions.”
She was 15 years old and questioned the portrayal of women in Christian history. She repeatedly questioned how Maria “could get pregnant without having sex.”
After two months, the priest, clearly exasperated, tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Rebecca, I don’t think this is for you.”
She says: “And that was the end of it!”
While she adored Madrid for its vibrancy and culture, as an 18-year-old she had to come to terms with her bisexuality and wanted to push boundaries.
“In Spain it is at that time [bisexuality] “It wasn’t a normal thing,” she says. “I found out when I was about 15, with one of my best friends at the time.
“We started fooling around. And so I felt like I had this very naughty side – without knowing that it was actually quite normal.”
Due to rumors about their relationship, Beckham did not renew his contract with SFX, the global management company that employed Rebecca
Victoria speaks in the Netflix documentary about the pressure caused by the affair revelations
When she moved to London, she studied international business and marketing at university, but found the course boring. Still, she had “the time of my life” and when she moved to Soho she discovered a gay bar called Freedom.
“When I walked in there, I thought, ‘Wow.'” When I walked in there, I just felt at home. I thought, “Oh my God, I’m not alone.”
It was the late 1990s and London was her playground. “I felt like I belonged, that London was all me,” she says.
She became a regular at Freedom and enjoyed clubbing at Ministry of Sound, making friends along the way. She was in a relationship with a young French woman for almost a year.
“There were pictures of us together all over our apartment, and I think Mom suspected it when she came to visit but never said anything.”
Her secret was finally revealed by a newspaper a few days after the story of her affair with Beckham broke.
When she dropped out of university after a year, her parents said they would no longer support her and suggested she return home. But she stayed and got a job as a records clerk at Harrods.
However, her talents lay elsewhere. She got a job with a tennis agent and traveled the world. His company was later acquired by Mayfair-based SFX, which had many top footballers on its books.
“I wasn’t particularly interested in sports, but I enjoyed the work and the traveling was great,” says Rebecca.
Long before she was introduced to him in Madrid, she saw Beckham at the SFX offices. She recalls: “I was at reception getting ready to go to lunch with a friend and he walked past me, looking me up and down and giving me a cheeky grin.”
Rebecca rolled her eyes, turned to her friend and said dismissively: “Another footballer…”
Today she says: “Celebrities didn’t impress me, I’m not like that.”
She is confident and resourceful and is fluent in English, Spanish, Dutch and French. It’s easy to see why she was seen as such an asset by SFX – and why she was assigned to both him and his family when Beckham moved to Real Madrid.
Apparently all the Beckhams liked the affable Rebecca. She looked for apartments for them, found schools and was there to help Beckham whenever he needed a translator.
Once, when the entire Beckham clan was in town at 11 p.m., she was asked to find a sushi restaurant that seats 18 people. “I sat in the back of a car and frantically rang the bell until I found something.” At other times she might have been called to deliver a Big Mac to the footballer’s hotel.
In some matters she was asked to only take care of Victoria, not her husband. “I worked for both of them at the time and was looking for an apartment.
Pictured is the front page of The Mirror from April 5, 2004, in which Rebecca Loos’ sister insists that the affair allegations are true
Rebecca Loos said David Beckham reopened old wounds with his Netflix documentary
“It had something to do with the house – a pool or a gym or something – and let’s say David wanted A and Victoria wanted B. Then Victoria’s assistant rang and said, ‘Victoria wants you to talk to her directly and not.’ talk to David.” And then David started texting me. When I said I had been instructed not to talk to him about things, he said, “We don’t have to tell anyone.”
That, says Rebecca, was the beginning of all her problems – and the affair that she thought she had put behind her until Beckham reopened old wounds with his Netflix documentary.
“I never received a degree,” she said. “If someone had just reached out to me, if they [Beckham] If I had just called me and said, “I’m so sorry, how can we fix this?” then things would have been completely different.’
She also believes she could have gotten better advice from her employers:
“Looking back, if I were to send a 26-year-old woman into this situation, I would give her guidance about what to expect – and I would definitely make sure she gets the support she needs.”
But she adds: “I’ve been very accepting of the decisions I’ve made, the mistakes I’ve made.” I’ve come to terms with them. In retrospect, [they have been the] best lessons I have learned in life. This path, these mistakes, everything I learned along the way have brought me to where I am today.
“And I’m in the most wonderful place I can be.” I’m so grateful. “I have the most incredible husband, children and family.”