Maniac Denis Nilsen once boasted: “I’m more famous than David Beckham.”
Nilsen made the deluded claim when he and ex-England football captain Becks both had waxworks at London’s Madame Tussauds.
The fiend, whose killing spree has been turned into an ITV drama, told a pen pal he would be remembered for longer than Victoria Beckham’s husband.
Nilsen – dubbed the Muswell Hill Murderer for slaying at least 16 men in the north London suburbs – was irked when Man United legend Becks’ lookalike went on show.
Writing in 2003 at the height of Beckham-mania, Nilsen said: “A thought has just hit me. What have I in common with David Beckham?
“Answer: We are both exhibits in Madame Tussauds.
“Alas, like all sportsmen, his star will fade in time and he will be melted down and replaced by some new sensation.
“Worse still, I guess, my infamy is destined to go on and on.”
Nilsen’s story has been turned into three-part series Des, starting on September 14 and starring former Doctor Who David Tennant as the monster.
Job centre clerk Nilsen befriended lonely men – many of whom were gay – and killed them at his flat. But he was rumbled when a Dyno-Rod man sent to clear his blocked drains found human remains in 1983.
Becks, 45, won 115 England caps and became a worldwide brand thanks to his marriage to “Posh Spice” Victoria in 1999.
He now owns a football club in America’s Major League Soccer.
Meanwhile, in a second newly unearthed letter, Nilsen said he was mistreated in prison because he was gay.
The killer, who died behind bars, aged 72, in 2018, wrote: “Jails are still immensely hostile to gays, as they are to any expressions of
non-conforming masculinity.
“They are cruel in their demanding indifference.”
He added: “One is constantly up against a lot of homophobes – but that is their weakness, not mine. I am comfortable in my orientation and feel no shame in being gay.”
Nilsen, who died from a heart problem at Full Sutton, near York, penned the gay hate note in 1998.
He was serving life for six counts of murder but it is believed the true toll of his five-year spree was much higher.
