Woman Talks Up Her Beckham Fling

A woman who claims she had an affair with soccer star David Beckham said the fling lasted just 10 days - not as long as the story has since run on the front pages of British newspapers.

"It was a space of 10 days and I had a bit of a fling, and then it was over," Rebecca Loos said in a live TV interview Monday. "I felt that I was falling for him pretty fast, but then again it was over so quickly."

Loos, 26, whose claims of an affair were first reported nearly two weeks ago, was formerly a personal assistant to the 28-year-old Real Madrid and England soccer star.

She spent about 15 minutes answering questions from Judy Finnegan and Richard Madeley on the "Richard and Judy" show.

Beckham has described as "ludicrous" and "absurd" by Loos and another women that he was their lover. He and his wife, former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham, have appeared happy and affectionate in recent public appearances, which sometimes have included their young sons, Brooklyn and Romeo.

Loos was asked whether the pop singer's decision not to stay with her husband in Spain after he transferred to Real Madrid was a factor in the fling.

"To a great extent I would. I feel that if there hadn't been a gap in that bed, I wouldn't have been in it," she said.

"He often said how much he missed his family, how much he missed the boys. He would never sit there and say, `Oh, I'm really lonely.' That's not what you do, is it? He was homesick and he missed his family."

As in a previous interview on British channel Sky One, Loos was quieter and less animated than her interviewers. She showed the most life when told that the show would broadcast a murky videotape of her with Beckham at a nightclub on the night the affair supposedly began.

"Wow! I've never seen the actual tape," Loos said.

She said Beckham knew she was bisexual, and denied that the soccer star had ever said he was no longer attracted to his wife, who is notably thin.

The Beckham story showed signs of dying down Monday, with just two of the five popular tabloids giving it front-page space.

On Sunday, the News of the World had quoted a "friend" as saying Beckham had confessed to his wife; on Monday, The Sun quoted a "friend" as saying he had nothing to confess.

British publicist Max Clifford, who has confirmed that he's working for Loos, was quoted by the Evening Standard newspaper as saying Loos had made media deals worth $1.44 million, including $630,000 for an exclusive interview with the News of the World.

Clifford said the frenzy hasn't harmed anyone, including Victoria Beckham.

"For Victoria, it's given her what she craves most: saturation coverage. The only reason she's famous is because she's Mrs. Beckham - her career disappeared years ago," Clifford was quoted as saying.

"I wouldn't say she's enjoying it, but given the choice between no publicity and this, she would choose this."

Roy Greenslade, a former editor of the tabloid Daily Mirror, wrote in Monday's editions of The Guardian newspaper that the Beckham frenzy has been depressing, "even by modern tabloid standards."

"What was so noticeable was the amount of speculation presented as fact, innuendo covered by question marks (`Could Victoria be pregnant?') and the widespread reliance on unidentified 'friends' for sensational quotes.

"None of this is new in the daily diet of celebrity journalism (in other words, the majority of what is published by tabloids) where an assembly line of `stars' are treated as objects for readers' amusement and what is written about them is often less than true," Greenslade wrote.

Since the News of the World first reported allegations of an affair between Loos and Beckham, another woman, Sarah Marbeck, also has claimed to have been Beckham's lover.

Managers of two escort agencies in Australia have said Marbeck, a native of Malaysia, worked for them. One of the managers said she had said that her story about Beckham was false.

In an interview broadcast Monday on Channel Nine's "A Current Affair" in Australia, Marbeck said it had been "love at first sight."

"I have waited three years and been really loyal to him," Marbeck said.