While some of us may be enjoying Towards Zero, the racy new Agatha Christie adaptation, one person who’s unlikely to be tuning in is Victoria Beckham. A source tells heat she was left devastated when it emerged last week that she and husband David had inspired the show’s makers.
Towards Zero features a famous sportsman who becomes embroiled in a love triangle and finds his marriage under the microscope. If you think that sounds a little familiar, you’re not entirely wrong. The makers of the BBC One series have publicly confessed that they drew parallels between the fictional TV couple and the Beckhams. ‘We were in development at the time the David Beckham documentary came out, and we did a lot of talking about that,’ said series producer Rebecca Durbin, citing ‘the excitement, the celebrity, the craziness’ that surrounds the couple.
Although the Beckhams remain happily married, their relationship was famously rocked back in 2004, when David’s PA Rebecca Loos alleged that she had an affair with the footballer while he played for Real Madrid. The claims put the couple’s marriage under the microscope. At the time they kept tight-lipped, but speaking about it for the first time in David’s Netflix docuseries last year, VB said, ‘It was the hardest period for us. It felt like the world was against us.’
Now, sources say the recent comments have dragged up the unhappy memories again. ‘Vic was beside herself when she read the producer’s comments,’ an insider tells heat. ‘She was in a happy place, but she’s been thrust back into a situation she feels like she can’t escape from. She can’t understand why their names have been dragged into what is essentially a piece of fiction. Every time she thinks they’ve moved on from these affair stories, something comes out of nowhere and rakes it all back up again.’
The cheating allegations first surfaced over 20 years ago, when Rebecca Loos claimed that she and David had a passionate four-month affair together, after he was transferred from Manchester United to the Spanish side. She had been assigned to look after him during his transfer. While both Victoria and David have denied the allegations, in the Netflix documentary, the couple opened up about the devastating impact the situation had on their marriage. ‘I don’t know how we got through it,’ said David.
‘Victoria is everything to me. To see her hurt was incredibly difficult. But we are fighters. And at that time, we needed to fight for each other – we needed to fight for our family.’
Our insider adds, ‘ The sheer embarrassment of the situation has never really left Victoria – she feels as if she’s spent the last 20 years doing everything she can to prove to the world that she and David are unbreakable. But every time she thinks they’ve put it behind them, a bombshell like this comes back to destroy all that.’
To make matter worse, the director of Towards Zero, Sam Yates, even joked that using the Beckhams as inspiration was ‘incredibly lowbrow’. ‘Vic was also really hurt at the director’s dig,’ says our source.
‘They’ve worked so hard to build their brand. David has urged her to just ignore it and not let some throwaway comments affect her and bring them down. But it’s not so easy for her to do that – she’s very sensitive and can’t just shake stuff like that off, and that’s been causing a lot of tension between them. David’s been incredibly patient, but it’s not been easy for them.’
The source adds, ‘Ultimately, though, Vic is determined to rise above it and focus on what’s most important. After all the hurt and pain this scandal has caused over the years, she’s not going to let it bring her down now.’