Coleen Rooney has finally broken her silence on the £3million libel case she won against Rebekah Vardy in a bombshell interview with British Vogue.
After maintaining a dignified silence, Coleen, who is married to footballer Wayne Rooney, both 37, has branded her nemesis, 41, ‘odd’ and said her ‘evil’ texts read in court made her sick.
Rebekah had sued Coleen over an accusation she had leaked details of Coleen’s private life to the press after Coleen had staged an elaborate sting operation to find out who was passing on stories about her to The Sun.
She told Vogue how she came up with a plot to foil the person who had been leaking stories, by planting false stories to her private account and only making them visible to Rebekah’s account but didn’t tell a soul what she was up to, not even a lawyer.
Coleen said: ‘I feel like a lot of people still don’t understand what happened, from beginning to end. But what I said in that post, I still stick by today.’
Coleen breaks her silence: Rooney branded Becky Vardy ‘odd’, says her ‘evil’ texts made her sick and revealed how she came up with THAT Wagatha Christie plot in interview with Vogue
Secret work: Coleen told the publication said she didn’t tell a soul she was going to put up a post about Rebekah Vardy’s account leaking stories to the press
The WAG revealed that her plan to publicly share the leaker on Instagram in October 2019, was all her own.
She said: ‘In the night I started thinking about what I was going to do. I just wanted these stories to stop.’
But she didn’t do a classic firing up of the Notes app at 3am?
She laughed. ‘No. I like a pen and paper – a pencil and rubber, actually, so I can rub it out. So I started writing what I wanted to say and then the next morning I put it out there. That was the start of something that I would never have expected.’
Coleen said she didn’t tell a soul what she was about to do. ‘No. [The part] my friends and family were most surprised at me [for was] putting the post up.’
She didn’t show it to Wayne or her mum, nor, despite much conjecture, to a lawyer. She woke up, typed it up and put it on the internet. Then she took Kai and one of his friends indoor skydiving.
She felt empowered and relieved she’d kept her plans to go public under wraps, saying: ‘If I want to do sunnin’ – and I know I’ll get talked out of doing sunnin’ – I’ll just go ahead and do it. I didn’t want no one telling me not to do it.’
On Becky, who is married to footballer Jamie Vardy, 36, Coleen said: ‘I felt like she was in the same world as me. She was in the public eye. I thought she would be protective over that kind of thing.
‘We could associate because our husbands had played for England together. But she doesn’t live around here. She wasn’t a friend. I’ve never socialised with her.’
No pal of mine: Coleen and Rebekah pictured together in 2016 – Coleen said that while their paths crossed, they did not socialise and nor were they friends
The post that accused Rebekah Vardy’s social media account of leaking stories. It sparked a £3million legal battle that Mrs Rooney has won after the judge agreed it was ‘substantially true’ and therefore not libellous
Won’t be silenced: See the full feature in the September issue of British Vogue, available via digital download and on newsstands from Tuesday August 22
Coleen admitted that when Rebekah said she was consulting lawyers, she was spooked. Rooney was immediately spooked.
She hadn’t pre-legalled her statement and had assumed relaying what had happened to her was allowed..
She said: ‘You see social media people calling people out in such nasty ways and I was thinking I wasn’t that nasty.’ But her stomach turned.
Adding: ‘I’ve never been in a legal case before so for me it was scary. What a horrible experience. The thing I was dreading the most was actually going to court.’
Coleen was both anxious and fuming that she’d been ‘dragged to court’, saying: ‘I found it hard not letting on.
‘It was so weird that first day, actually sitting on a bench together. It was so difficult in that courtroom… especially watching her on the stand. It was quite painful. I felt uneasy.
‘Obviously she was going through it. ‘I thought, “Why have you put yourself in this position?” It was not nice to watch. To this day she cannot for the life of her understand why Vardy took her to court. She is “odd”.’
And she revealed how she found out she had won the case.
She said: ‘I had to come out to take the phone call, so I’m sitting in me car in the middle of Manchester in an industrial estate on my own,. David Sherborne, her lawyer, came on the line and said “We’ve won,” he said without any build up.’
She laughed: ‘I think all I did was swear for the whole quarter of an hour phone call.
‘It was quite surreal how many people followed it. Not just footballers or the girls. It felt like everyone was reading about it. All ages, all types.
‘The positivity I got from it…I’m glad for that, at least.’
Coleen was awarded costs by the court and £800,000 of the total amount due was payable immediately.
Vardy was said to have scored one of the worst own goals in British legal history after a High Court judge dismissed her evidence as ‘evasive or implausible’ and accused her of deliberately deleting WhatsApp messages central to the case.
Her agent, Caroline Watt, was also accused of intentionally dropping her phone in the North Sea. During the trial, some of Rebekah’s personal texts to her Caroline were read out.
Coleen said: ‘The texts knocked me sick. They were just another level. When I was reading them I was thinking: the evilness and the hatred that they had for someone that they don’t even know.’
Pictured: Rebekah sensationally lost the ‘Wagatha Christie’ libel case with Coleen in July 2022
These are the sensational posts and images at the heart of the £3 million Wagatha Christie libel trial between Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney – many published here for the first time. Top of the bill is the famous but never published photo from Coleen’s private Instagram account showing Wayne in bed with three of his sons in spotted pyjamas (pictured)
Coleen told the court that she only posted the image (pictured left) on her private account because she did not want to fuel stories about her and Wayne reuniting after the couple’s marriage faltered when he was caught drink driving in another woman’s car. On her public Instagram account Coleen only posted a photo of herself with her then three sons Kai, Klay and Kit, (pictured right) wearing matching pyjamas. But she was angered a few days later, when a story appeared in The Sun clearly based on the private image
On 12th of September 2019, Coleen shows a picture of herself with her youngest son Cass, looking at their new mansion-in-progress in Cheshire, with the caption: ‘Site visit. I think he likes his new house’ (pictured)
Then there are many posted which Coleen added onto her private Instagram account, some of which were fake, and some of those she blocked from all over her followers except Rebekah’s account. In one post she showed a photograph of her passport with the caption ‘Escaping the measle outbreak in Washington’. In another she accused someone on her Instagram of leaking stories to the Sun
Screen grab dated issued by Kingsley Napley of text messages between Rebekah and Jamie Vardy after reports Wayne Rooney was asked to tell Jamie Vardy his wife needed to reduce her media presence
Pictured left: A screen grab of Coleen Rooney’s private Instagram story of the so-called ‘TV decisions’ post, one of the three fake posts she said she posted in her sting operation. Pictured right: A post from Coleen Rooney’s private Instagram story which has only been viewed by one account
In one image, Coleen was seen riding on a bike around holding a bottle of wine (pictured left), while Claire posted a picture of the women in a hot tub together, and some of them riding ponies. A story subsequently appeared in The Sun, clearly based on the private image of Coleen on the bicycle, which mentioned she was seen ‘swigging a bottle of plonk while cycling at speed’. Pictured right: A screen grab issued by Kingsley Napley of a post from Coleen Rooney’s private Instagram story which has only been viewed by one account
FEBRUARY 2019: Ms Watt and Rebekah realise Coleen has unfollowed them on Instagram. In a series of messages, Rebekah, who is married to Leicester City striker Jamie, 35, is said to have described Coleen as a ‘nasty b****’ and a ‘c***’, while Ms Watt brands the wife of former Manchester United star Wayne Rooney as ‘trash’ and ‘up her own ar**’
While Coleen seems to bear no ill-will towards Rebekah, she said: ‘I’m a forgive and forget person, I can’t be bothered with things going on and on. But this is obviously totally different.’
‘You can’t go wrong if you’re telling the truth.’
Coleen admits the trial put extra strain on her marriage to footballer Wayne Rooney.
She said: ‘He was supportive, you know, but it took its toll. He kept saying all the way throughout it: “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”
‘But there were certain moments where we did have disagreements. Not over the case, but he would get annoyed with me because I was quite short-tempered. You know,’ she sighed, ‘I didn’t have time for him.’
She admitted: ‘We’ve had our ups and downs. Obviously everybody knows. It’s been hard to go through it in the public eye but there has always been love there. If the love is gone then, you know, it’s pointless. But if not, you’ve got something to work for.
‘It’s been a battle at times. I look at [any] situation we’re in and think, “Could we move forward from that? Is it worth moving forward from that?” I don’t just give up.’
She admitted: ‘There was a moment, in the autumn of 2021, when Wayne had said, “He felt like I wasn’t me anymore”.
She remembers sitting with her father outside the football one afternoon, crying and crying.
He said to her: ‘You look ill,’ and she wailed that she just wanted it to be over. ‘So the relief!’ she says now. ‘The relief was everything.’
‘When people say, “Oh, she’s only in the public eye because of Wayne,” I’m like, “Yeah I am.”.’
On her upcoming three-part Disney+ documentary, Rooney said: ‘It’s brought up a lot of emotions. I felt like everyone else has spoken about it except me,” she says. “And it’s my story to tell.’
See the full feature in the September issue of British Vogue, available via digital download and on newsstands from Tuesday August 22.
Coleen Rooney’s three-part documentary will air exclusively on Disney+ later this year.
Pricey: With her own court costs fees adding up to around £4 million, Rebekah is facing up to £6 million in legal fees as Coleen’s final bill is now at £1.8million
Wagatha Christie timeline: How Coleen and Rebekah’s war unfolded
September 2017 to October 2019 – The Sun runs a number of articles about Coleen, including that she travelled to Mexico to look into baby ‘gender selection’ treatment, her plan to revive her TV career and the flooding of her basement.
October 9, 2019 – Coleen uses social media to accuse Rebekah of selling stories from her private Instagram account to the tabloids.
Coleen says she spent five months attempting to work out who was sharing information about her and her family based on posts she had made on her personal social media page.
After sharing a series of ‘false’ stories and using a process of elimination, Coleen claims they were viewed by one Instagram account, belonging to Rebekah.
Rebekah, then pregnant with her fifth child, denies the allegations and says various people had access to her Instagram over the years.
She claims to be ‘so upset’ by Coleen’s accusation, later adding: ‘I thought she was my friend but she completely annihilated me.’
The public dispute makes headlines around the world, with the hashtag #WagathaChristie trending.
How it all began: On October 9, 2019, Coleen Rooney, now 36, accused Rebekah Vardy, 40, of leaking ‘false stories’ about her to the press in an Instagram post (above)
February 13, 2020 – In a tearful appearance on ITV’s Loose Women, Rebekah says the stress of the dispute caused her to have severe anxiety attacks and she ‘ended up in hospital three times’. Coleen says in a statement that she does not want to ‘engage in further public debate’.
Shortly after Coleen’s public accusation, Rebekah – who was pregnant and on holiday in Dubai at the time – denied any involvement (above)
June 23, 2020 – It emerges that Rebekah has launched libel proceedings against Coleen.
Rebekah’s lawyers allege she ‘suffered extreme distress, hurt, anxiety and embarrassment as a result of the publication of the post and the events which followed’.
November 19-20, 2020 – The libel battle has its first High Court hearing in London. A judge rules that Coleen’s October 2019 post ‘clearly identified’ Rebekah as being ‘guilty of the serious and consistent breach of trust’.
Mr Justice Warby concludes that the ‘natural and ordinary’ meaning of the posts was that Rebekah had ‘regularly and frequently abused her status as a trusted follower of Coleen’s personal Instagram account by secretly informing The Sun of Coleen’s private posts and stories’.
February 8-9, 2022 – A series of explosive messages between Rebekah and her agent Caroline Watt – which Coleen’s lawyers allege were about her – are revealed at a preliminary court hearing.
The court is told Rebekah was not referring to Coleen when she called someone a ‘nasty bitch’ in one exchange with Ms Watt.
Coleen’s lawyers seek further information from the WhatsApp messages, but the court is told that Ms Watt’s phone fell into the North Sea after a boat she was on hit a wave, before further information could be extracted from it.
February 14 – Coleen is refused permission to bring a High Court claim against Ms Watt for misuse of private information to be heard alongside the libel battle. A High Court judge, Mrs Justice Steyn, says the bid was brought too late and previous opportunities to make the claim had not been taken.
April 13 – Ms Watt is not fit to give oral evidence at the upcoming libel trial, the High Court is told as the case returns for another hearing.
The agent revokes permission for her witness statement to be used, and withdraws her waiver which would have allowed Sun journalists to say whether she was a source of the allegedly leaked stories.
April 29 – Rebekah ‘appears to accept’ that her agent was the source of allegedly leaked stories, Coleen’s barrister David Sherborne tells the High Court. He argues that a new witness statement submitted by Rebekah suggests Ms Watt was the source but Rebekah claims she ‘did not authorise or condone her’.
Rebekah’s lawyer Hugh Tomlinson says the statement did not contain ‘any change whatever in the pleaded case’, with her legal team having no communication with Ms Watt.
May 10 onwards – The trial lasts seven days
