Neville Thurlbeck told the Leveson public inquiry into the ethics, culture and practices of the British press that the now-defunct tabloid decided that the story was clearly in the public interest.
He described the lengths the paper went to to verify kiss-and-tell stories, saying that for every one published up to 10 others were dropped because the required level of proof could not be obtained.
Thurlbeck has been arrested as part of the police investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World, and therefore did not testify on that subject so as not to prejudice the probe.
He has not been charged with any offence.
"A great deal of activity went into establishing the truth of what people were telling us," he told the inquiry in central London.
"The myth was we made it all up and that still prevails, I think," Thurlbeck said.
"But we didn't. We went to enormous lengths to satisfy our team of lawyers that what we had was factually correct... and demonstrably correct," he said, citing phone calls and photographic evidence.
"Privacy has become a huge matter over the last three years and I would say the kiss-and-tell story now is largely dead as a genre," he said.
"We decided there was huge public interest in that matter because the Beckhams had been using their marriage in order to endorse products," he said.
There were making "millions of pounds on the back of that image.
"It was a wholesome image that the family cultivated and the public bought into on a massive scale and we exposed that to be a sham."
Thurlbeck said he spent five months on the story in total, including six weeks in Australia and at least five weeks in Spain.
He was forced into revealing the magnitude of how much money Loos received, saying it was more than £100,000.
"It was the most I think I'd ever paid for a story. We're talking about a six figure sum. Just," he said.
Mirror
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