Infidelity speculation swirled after David was photographed leaving a Madrid nightclub with a mystery woman. Though she was later revealed to be his assistant, Rebecca Loos, Rebecca’s brother John Charles Loos later claimed that the cheating rumors were true.

“She has confirmed to me she had an affair with David,” John Charles alleged during a 2004 interviw with the Daily Mail. David, meanwhile, dismissed the allegations as false.

“During the past few months I have become accustomed to reading more and more ludicrous stories about my private life,” the athlete said in a statement. “The simple truth is that I am very happily married. I have a wonderful wife and two very special kids. There is nothing any third party can do to change these facts.”

Years later, David and Victoria both opened up about the affair rumors in the 2023 Netflix documentary Beckham.

“It was the hardest period [of our marriage] because it felt like the world was against us,” Victoria recalled. “Here’s the thing — we were against each other, if I’m being completely honest.”

She added that the tumultuous period was a “nightmare” for the couple. “Up until Madrid, sometimes it felt like us against everybody else, but we were together, we were connected, we had each other,” the fashion designer explained. “But when we were in Spain, it didn’t really feel like we had each other either. And that’s sad. I can’t even begin to tell you how hard it was and how it affected me.”

David, meanwhile, got emotional talking about the challenging time in the duo’s marriage. 

“I don’t know how we got through it, in all honesty,” he confessed. “Victoria is everything to me, to see her hurt was incredibly difficult, but we’re fighters. And at that time, we needed to fight for each other, we needed to fight for our family. And what we had was worth fighting for. But ultimately, it is our private life.”