Rebecca Loos, one of the famous faces braving this year’s Celebrity SAS opens up about ‘that’ David Beckham scandal and how being branded a ‘liar’ has forced her to develop a thick skin

Rebecca says she’s developed a thick skin after ‘a lifetime of opinions around her’(Image: Channel 4)

Rebecca Loos faces a grilling on Celebrity SAS about her affair with David Beckham – and she dubbed him a “coward” for the way he brushed what happened under the carpet on his Netflix documentary.

Loos was Beckham’s personal assistant in 2003 and claims broke the following year about them having a four month fling. Beckham said reports of the affair were “ludicrous” at the time but never mounted a legal challenge to the story or any subsequent interviews. Loos went on to appear on reality shows like The Farm and Celebrity Love Island before stepping out of the limelight and is now a yoga teacher in Norway.

The model-turned-yoga teacher gave a tell-all interview to GMB about the Beckham saga in 2023(Image: ITV)

On her TV comeback on Channel 4 this week, Rebecca said: “I just wanted to show people who I am and just be myself, which has always been my thing. And I just went in it with a very open mind and take it as it comes.

“I was quite nervous as to how the others would perceive me. I was nervous and apprehensive as to how the show would be edited, because that’s always something you have no control of. However, I must say the production team on this show have been absolutely amazing from day one, they have been truthful, they have stuck to their word.

“It felt unjust that my life was pretty hell and his(Becks) life kept going and kept blossoming. I’ve been accused of being a liar. I’ve had a lifetime of opinions around me, I’ve definitely developed thick skin. I think the public opinion now has softened, at least from what I’m gathering since the documentary came out with the Beckhams a couple of years ago. I think it is now because thanks to social media, there is a whole different following out there, which it’s a double-edged sword.

“You’ve got the online trolls but I don’t think that many people, at least the younger generation, know me that well. I’ve never really been very interested in what people think of me to be honest. It doesn’t bother me. I don’t think about it. I don’t know what the perception is of me. I don’t really care. I’m just myself, and some like it and some don’t. And that’s just how life is.”

Like all the recruits, Rebecca faced a grilling in the show’s Mirror Room. Jason Fox and Chris Oliver questioned her motives for being on the show before asking how she felt about her affair with Beckham now she’s had the time to reflect on it.

The mum-of-two admits she was nervous about going on the show(Image: Pete Dadds / Channel 4)

On his Netflix 2023 doc Beckham didn’t name Rebecca and failed to take any accountability. He just said: “I don’t know how we got through it in all honesty,” on a tricky time when he lived in Madrid.

On being asked about Beckham on the Channel 4 show and what she feels about how things have played out, she added: “I was quite guarded at the beginning. I was trying to be guarded because it’s not something I want to talk about the whole time. But at the same time I also wanted to be honest with them, so they were really good at getting through to me.

“They’re obviously professionals at this. I don’t shy away from what I’ve been through, and I don’t shy away from the decisions that I’ve made. They have shaped me into who I am, and I’ve really learnt a lot from the mistakes that I’ve made in my life and the things that I’ve done. And I really do think that being truthful is the only way to go in life. I’ll stand by that forever.

“It takes a lot of courage to tell the truth and to own up to mistakes that you have made, mistakes and times in your life you’re not proud of. And it’s very easy to just brush them under the carpet and move on. That’s like the coward’s way, I think, of living.”

Asked if the SAS experience changes her, she said: “I very much like how they instil in you that even though you want to give up, you don’t. And it’s easier to take the easy way out, but you’ve got to fight and push through, and push hard. They gave me a bit of SAS grit. They really inspired me. When I came out of the show, I had made some changes in my life, which I think is definitely thanks to SAS.

Rebecca nows lives a quiet life in a remote part of Norway with her family(Image: PA)

“I quit alcohol. That was the first thing I did. I wasn’t a big drinker, but I was a social drinker and I noticed that it wasn’t good for me and my hormones and what I was going through, and it was having quite a negative effect on me, mentally. So I just decided to cut that out and I started lifting heavy weights. I wanted to get strong. I know it’s really good for my bones, it’s very good for women.

“I was in perimenopause last year. And I’ve also started taking HRT. I’ve just started doing things to make sure that I live a healthy and strong life, that I age feeling strong, that I’m able to put a weight on my back and run up a mountain if I have to. So yeah, it was a bit of a kick in the arse to test myself a little bit again. I think in the years prior to SAS, I went through a lot as a mother as well because I had a youngest son who was struggling a lot.”

Surviving on the SAS course has made Rebecca come to terms with aging and accepting that now she’s a mother she’s more risk averse: “I used to be a risk-taker when I was younger, an absolute risk-taker. I used to love it. I used to thrive on it. Whereas now, no way. Motherhood has softened me. Aging, growing, maturing, we change. I won’t speak for all the women, but at least I have become slightly softer, more careful.

“And that’s probably due to the fact that I hardly have any hormones left in my body. I’m in a different phase. It was a bit of a wake-up call to that. But realising and accepting that is very empowering and it’s very positive and it’s not a negative thing at all. I like being very aware of what I’m going through and who I am.”

Rebecca’s life today is a far cry from the media frenzy that exploded around her during the Beckham scandal in 2004. Now living a quiet, picture-perfect life for the last 14 years in Norway with her husband of 13 years, Norwegian doctor Sven Christjar Skaiaa, who she met whilst filming the reality programme, 71 Graden Noord, she is also mother to two sons, Magnus, 16, and Liam,13.

She has been open with her two sons about her explosive past(Image: Channel 4)

The family is based in the remote area of Buskerud county, which is a three-hour trip to the nearest airport. Working as a yoga teacher and massage therapist, she revealed previously that she quit the UK for a “very different” life, to raise her “little Vikings”,

She has said of her life in Norway. ‘It’s not like England here, it’s much less judgmental. I used to get people coming up to me in Waitrose, right in my face, taking pictures of me with their mobiles”

Rebecca has also revealed how open she is with her sons about her past, including the attention thrust upon her over her alleged affair with Beckham, something he has always denied.

She said in 2023: “They know. And so I said – and I feel that it’s very unfair because of the way I’m being treated now and the bullying I’m getting and the trolling. And I want to say something. And I’m going to do an interview, so there might be some media and how do you feel about that.

“And so my youngest son said, oh, good. He’s a bit like me. He’s like, good for you, Mummy. Yes, I would say something to him. And my eldest son, he said, well, I don’t really know anything about Beckham. It’s not like it’s Messi, Mummy. I mean, had it been Messi…’