Rebecca Loos
{{Short description|Dutch media personality}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2019}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Rebecca Loos
| image = Rebecca Loos.jpg
| caption = Loos at a party in 2006
| birth_name = Rebecca Loos Bartholdi
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1977|6|19|df=y}}
| birth_place = Madrid, Spain
| nationality =
| citizenship = Dutch
| height =
| death_date =
| other_names =
| website = {{URL|rebeccaloos.com}}
| spouse = {{marriage|Sven Christjar Skai|2012}}
| partner =
| children = 2
| relatives = Piers Morgan (second cousin)
| occupation = {{hlist|Yoga teacher|massage therapist|television personality|model|assistant}}
| television = Celebrity Love Island
The Farm
Extreme Celebrity Detox
Temptation Island
The X Factor: Battle of the Stars
}}
Rebecca Loos (born 19 June 1977) is a Dutch former glamour model and media personality. She first came to public attention following her claims that she had conducted an affair with the married footballer David Beckham, while she was employed as his personal assistant. The allegations led to Loos appearing on several reality television series, magazine covers, and in other media for a few years thereafter.{{cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1605094/|title=Rebecca Loos|website=IMDb|access-date=18 December 2018}}
Early life and education
Loos was born in Madrid, Spain, but holds Dutch citizenship.{{cite web|url=http://www.rebeccaloos.com/rl/Home.html|title=Official Website|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100306040840/http://www.rebeccaloos.com/rl/Home.html|archive-date=6 March 2010}} Her father, Leonard Loos Bartholdi, was a Dutch diplomat, and her mother, Elizabeth Loos, is originally from Surrey, England.{{cite web |url=http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-10116779-details/Posh+vs+Very+Posh/article.do |title=Rebecca Loos Biography: Posh vs Very Posh |publisher=Thisislondon.co.uk |date=4 March 1999 |access-date=27 April 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081026095458/http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-10116779-details/Posh+vs+Very+Posh/article.do |archive-date=26 October 2008 }} Loos was privately educated at Runnymede College in Madrid.{{cite web|url=https://www.nzherald.co.nz/|title=My story of Becks, sex and text|date=16 April 2004|access-date=18 December 2018|website=The New Zealand Herald}} She is a second cousin of Piers Morgan, who was editor of the Daily Mirror tabloid newspaper when Loos initially gained media attention.{{cite news| url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/piers-morgan-my-favourite-moments-on-planet-tabloid-505609.html | work=The Independent | location=London | title=Piers Morgan: My favourite moments on Planet Tabloid | date=5 September 2005 | access-date=22 May 2010}}
Career
Loos became the personal assistant to former England national football team captain David Beckham when he transferred to Real Madrid in July 2003. Her employment was terminated a few months later and Loos subsequently gave an interview to the British tabloid newspaper News of the World in April 2004, alleging that she and Beckham had conducted a four-month affair whilst he was married to his wife Victoria. The claims were never corroborated and were dismissed by Beckham as "ludicrous", although he did not mount a legal challenge to the story.{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3614993.stm|title=Beckham story is tabloids' dream|work=BBC News|date=9 April 2004 }}{{cite book|author1=Richard Keeble|author2=Ian Reeves|title=The Newspapers Handbook|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DvJTBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA304|date=21 August 2014|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-50077-0|pages=304–}}{{cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/iv-drip/rebecca-loos-is-back-do-you-think-she-was-right-to-sell-her-story-8536136.html|title=Rebecca Loos is back: do you think she was right to sell her story?|website=Independent.co.uk |date=15 March 2013}}
Shortly after the newspaper coverage of her alleged affair with Beckham, Loos commenced a career as a media personality. In 2004, she briefly appeared as a hostess on the Dutch TV programme Shownieuws.
In October 2004, Loos made an appearance on the controversial reality television programme The Farm on Channel 5. The RSPCA accused producers of pandering to a "morbid and sordid fascination with farm animals",{{cite book|author1=Quentin Falk|author2=Ben Falk|title=Television's Strangest Moments|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4L7pA2tKumsC&pg=PA293|date=2005|publisher=Robson Books|isbn=978-1-86105-874-4|page=293}} while PETA and Mediawatch-UK demanded the show be taken off the air.{{cn|date=June 2025}}
In 2005, Loos appeared on the ITV reality show Celebrity Love Island. The same year, Loos took part in a staged wedding ceremony with American fashion model Jenny Shimizu for the television programme Power Lesbian UK[http://www.divamag.co.uk/diva/features.asp?AID=287 "Jenny Shimizu & Rebecca Loos: what's the story?"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140906010030/http://www.divamag.co.uk/diva/features.asp?AID=287 |date=6 September 2014}} by Jane Czyzselka, Diva magazine, November 2005. Retrieved 16 November 2007. to protest against America's laws on same-sex marriage. It was broadcast in the United States as Power Lesbians on Logo TV. The two had a relationship for a period thereafter. Loos has stated that she is bisexual and "has been ever since [she] was a teenager."[http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,1212302,00.html "When Hello means Bi for now"] The Observer, 9 May 2004.
Loos played for the England Women's football team in a Sky charity event in 2006. In April that same year, she also ran the London Marathon, and raised more than £7,000 in sponsorship for the British Red Cross. Later, in May, Loos appeared on The X Factor: Battle of the Stars alongside James Hewitt, in which she received a negative reception from judge Sharon Osbourne.[https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/you-loos-sharon-627891 "You Loos, Sharon"] Daily Mirror, 5 June 2006.{{better source needed|reason=tabloid|date=June 2025}}
Loos was a contestant on Supervivientes 2007, in which she came third. In November of that year, she appeared in Sky TV's Cirque de Celebrité in which she was one of two new contestants introduced midway through the series.
In 2008, Loos was a guest on The Podge and Rodge Show. In September, she had a part in a Dutch feature film called Mijn vader is een Detective (English: My father is a detective). In October, she took part in the Dutch version of 71 Degrees North (71 Graden Noord).
Loos has been featured on the covers of Playboy, FHM, Nuts, Zoo Weekly and other men's magazines and lad mags.{{cn|date=June 2025}}
Personal life
Loos met her future husband, Norwegian doctor Sven Christjar Skaiaa,{{cite news| url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/4590683/Rebecca-Loos-reveals-pregnancy-with-new-man.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090215001051/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/4590683/Rebecca-Loos-reveals-pregnancy-with-new-man.html | url-status=dead | archive-date=15 February 2009 | work=The Daily Telegraph | location=London | title=Rebecca Loos reveals pregnancy with new man | first=Fiona | last=Govan | date=11 February 2009 | access-date=22 May 2010}} while she was filming 71 Graden Noord. After becoming pregnant, she relocated to Norway in 2009, and has only made occasional media appearances since then. Loos has stated on her official website that she is now a mother of two sons and works as a yoga teacher and massage therapist.{{cite web|url=https://rebeccaloos.com/?page_id=325|title=About Rebecca Loos|last=Rebecca Loos|date=21 November 2020|access-date=21 November 2020|publisher=rebeccaloos.com}}
Notable media appearances
- 2004 – Hostess on Dutch television show Shownieuws
- October 2004 – Participant on The Farm
- 2004 – Extreme Celebrity Detox for Channel 4
- February–April 2005 (on screen) – Dream Team, a Sky football-based TV series. Recurring role of Naomi Wyatt, a sports psychologist
- Summer 2005 – Participant on the ITV reality show Celebrity Love Island
- Autumn 2005 – Hostess of the TV documentary Power Lesbian UK for Logo TV
- January 2006 – Celebrity model in the Dutch edition of Playboy magazine
- April 2006 – Participant in the Belgian/Dutch version of the reality show Temptation Island
- April 2006 – England team member in Sky 1's Celebrity World Cup Soccer Tournament (losing 2–1 to Brazil in the final).
- May 2006 – Contestant on The X Factor: Battle of the Stars, singing along with James Hewitt
- February 2007 – Appeared on New Zealand's reality TV show Treasure Island: Pirates of the Pacific
- May 2007 – Contestant on Supervivientes, in which she came third
- November 2007 – Contestant on Sky TV's Cirque de Celebrité. Loos was voted out by the public after just a week.
- 8–9 December 2008 – Guest host of television's The Podge and Rodge Show
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{Sister project links |wikt=no |commons=Rebecca Loos |b=no |n=no |q=no |s=no |v=no |species=no |display=Rebecca Loos}}
- {{official website|http://www.rebeccaloos.com}}
- {{IMDb name|id=1605094|name=Rebecca Loos}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Loos, Rebecca}}
Category:Bisexual women models
Category:Bisexual women entertainers
Category:English people of Dutch descent
Category:Dutch LGBTQ entertainers
Category:Dutch LGBTQ rights activists
Category:Mass media people from Madrid
Category:Dutch people of English descent
Category:The X Factor (British TV series) contestants
Category:Dutch LGBTQ broadcasters
Category:English expatriates in Spain