PLATELL’S PEOPLE: Brand Becks should get a red card for cashing in on Rebecca Loos in David Beckham’s new Netflix docu-series

Millions of us have been captivated by the Netflix docu-series Beckham.

Never-before-seen footage shows the rise of the skinny child star who argued with his ‘quick tempered’ father, was nurtured by Manchester United’s Alex Ferguson and who fell in love with Posh Spice to become the multi-millionaire he is today.

We’ve relived the moment David Beckham became a national hate figure after he was red-carded in the 1998 World Cup for that petulant kick. We’ve seen how he went from hero to zero, surviving years of depression but still feels guilty for letting England down. It is all powerful and poignant viewing.

There, always by his side, is Victoria, the one he says saved him and who, in the series, comes across as surprisingly vulnerable.

And yet I feel uncomfortable about one very significant aspect of Posh and Becks’s new venture.

Millions of us have been captivated by the Netflix docu-series Beckham (David pictured)

There, always by his side, is Victoria (pictured), the one he says saved him and who, in the series, comes across as surprisingly vulnerable

And yet I feel uncomfortable about one very significant aspect of Posh and Becks’s new venture. It’s when they talk about his alleged affair in 2003 with his PR assistant Rebecca Loos (pictured) after he was transferred to Madrid

It’s when they talk about his alleged affair in 2003 with his PR assistant Rebecca Loos after he was transferred to Madrid. Victoria reveals that the months after Loos sold her story to a newspaper were ‘the hardest of my life’, that she no longer felt like the couple ‘had each other’, that she was ‘drowning’.

David said he ‘felt physically sick every day’ as they battled to save their marriage. I felt for Posh as I watched. But not half as much as I feel for Rebecca Loos, who has been dragged callously back into the limelight nearly 20 years after the event. Presumably to add ‘spice’ to their documentary.

David, who was her boss, doesn’t actually admit to the affair and bizarrely neither he nor his wife mention Loos’s name. But we all know who they are talking about.

And, as Loos has said in the past: ‘He was the one who was married. He was the one who seduced me… Yet I was the one who was vilified.’

Yes, she made a mistake selling her story and posing for lad mags, but she was young and, worse, egged on by her horrible money-grubbing agent Max Clifford.

In recent years she has found peace, living quietly with her doctor husband Sven and their young sons Magnus and Liam in Norway. Now she’s splashed all over the world again to help promote Brand Beckham.

You may be able to bend the ball, David, but it’s a red card for throwing Rebecca under the bus.

Romance could end Swiftly for NFL star

Since Taylor Swift started turning up at NFL games to watch her new beau, Kansas City Chiefs superstar Travis Kelce, TV ratings for the game have soared by four million.

But instead of cameras being trained on the game, they’re focused on Taylor’s minuscule hot pants, to the fury of real US football fans. Taylor is Shaking It Off on her $1 billion Eras world tour.

Let’s hope Travis is the real thing — and not just another photo opportunity for media-savvy Taylor.

Taylor Swift seen out and about in Manhattan on October 1 in New York City

After a terrible year in which This Morning’s Holly Willoughby lost her co-presenter Phillip Schofield and was vilified for allegedly queue-jumping to see the Queen lying in state, she’s now under police protection at her home following a ‘credible’ plot to ‘kidnap and kill her’. A man has been arrested and charged.

This should give social media haters pause for thought.

Women in the public eye, not men, are always the first — and most vulnerable — targets.

Eco-warrior Madonna eschewed her private jet to take a BA flight from New York to London before her UK tour. Yet her concerts are expected to generate 1,635 tons of carbon pollution in travel alone. The average Brit produces ten tons a year. So, Mama Don’t Preach!

Courage of rugby’s Rob

Together with his wife Lindsey and best mate Kevin Sinfield, rugby league legend Rob Burrow has won a Pride of Britain Award after raising £13 million to fight motor neurone disease which has left him wheel-chair bound.

Of Lindsey, Rob says: ‘She’s stronger than any rugby player, I’m so lucky to have her’.

And we are lucky to have you, Rob.

++Westminster wars ++

Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman and Penny Mordaunt were all accused of being on manoeuvres during conference, bidding for the leadership should Rishi lose the election.

Yet don’t these clever, strong Tory women eclipse Labour’s second raters — Angela Rayner, Rachel Reeves and Yvette Cooper — who couldn’t run a local laundromat?

Much excitement as Liz Truss’s speech had hundreds queuing up, proving her pulling power. Was it a sign she has a legitimate claim to the top job? No. It was more like a freak show — ‘Roll up, roll up for your chance to see the woman who was PM for 49 days, who crashed the economy and sent mortgages soaring!’

Keir Starmer’s big idea is a £111 million plan to make teachers give kids teeth-brushing lessons in school.

It’s enough to make you froth at the mouth. If parents can’t even teach their children how to brush their teeth, why did they have them?

Terror of big dogs

The XL bully that killed dad Ian Langley had reportedly attacked other people. Why are these monsters allowed to exist? Recently a Bernese Mountain Dog, off the lead, rounded on me in the park, snarling just feet from my face. They are huge, weighing up to 70kg.

The owner said her dog wouldn’t hurt me but I was terrified. Large dogs should be banned from public spaces unless on a leash.

Why haven’t silly shoes flopped?

Margot Robbie loves them, so do Heidi Klum and Kate Hudson as well as an army of other fans.

But as Birkenstock floats its $9 billion (£7.6 billion) company on the New York Stock Exchange, am I the only woman alive who finds them unutterably uncomfortable, a death trap walking up or down stairs, useless on long walks as they offer no real support — and an absurd price at up to £350, given that they’re just posh flip-flops?

Margot Robbie wearing Birkesnstocks

Norwegian author Jon Fosse has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. When I tried to read his book Septology — seven bloody volumes — billed as ‘a transcendent exploration of the human condition’, I found there was no plot nor punctuation and it was utterly depressing. Oh, for the days when this award went to people who could actually write — Saul Bellow, Doris Lessing and Harold Pinter. And by the way, JK Rowling’s Harry Potter was also seven volumes, but more than 500 million people read them. 

Don’t cha cha change Strictly

Strictly’s Layton Williams scored 36 points for his quickstep in Week Two and may wow viewers as the first male contestant to wear high heels and a dress. He says he wants to inspire children struggling with their sexual identity. Jolly good, but Layton is a professional dancer, so it’s not fair. And, BBC’s Strictly is supposed to be a family show teaching people how to dance, not a platform for LGBTIQA+ ideology.

Appearing during a mediation session in her divorce from pop star Joe Jonas to decide custody of their two young girls, Game Of Thrones actress Sophie Turner turns up wearing tracksuit bottoms, trainers and a grey sweat shirt, looking radiant — proving perhaps that divorce from Joe suits her.

Big Brother is back tomorrow night after being axed five years ago. Now on ITV2, bosses promise it will be a kinder show and all the housemates and the production team have had diversity and inclusion training.

What? Big Brother is famous for catfights and cruelty. Let’s see how long viewers stick around when they tune into a navel-gazing show for contestants contemplating their inner feelings.

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