Tearful Coleen Rooney blasts ‘two-faced’ Rebekah Vardy as she reveals the stress of being sued made her physically ill: ‘I felt ashamed and I felt like the victim’
Coleen Rooney has revealed the stress of the Wagatha Christie court case made her physically sick.
Speaking in her Disney+ documentary, Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story, the 37-year-old TV personality admitted she ‘completely changed her character’ as she struggled to cope with the pressure of going to trial.
Reflecting on the pressure of being sued by Rebekah Vardy, she recalled: ‘I remember sitting with my dad one day, we took Klay to football. He looked at me and said “Coleen you’re not you anymore, you look sick.”
‘It was horrible because I didn’t want to be around people and that’s not me at all. I was snappy at the kids, I just hated trying to be happy.
‘I could see people were concerned but it was just constantly on my mind. I couldn’t get away from it.’
Distressing: Coleen Rooney has revealed the stress of the Wagatha Christie court case made her physically sick as she spoke in her new Disney+ series about the Wagatha Christie scandal
Struggles: Reflecting on the pressure of being sued by Rebekah Vardy (pictured) Coleen recalled ‘It was horrible because I didn’t want to be around people and that’s not me at all’
Sharing his concerns for his wife, Wayne Rooney confessed: ‘She couldn’t get it off my mind. It was probably the lowest I’d ever seen her.’
Wayne’s agent Paul Stretford added: ‘I remember her crying on the phone it was becoming unbearable, I thought she would fold and give Coleen what she wanted.’
Reflecting on the moment she first saw messages exchanged between Rebekah and her agent Caroline Watt, Coleen revealed she ‘felt sick’.
In one text, she Rebekah described her rival Coleen as a ‘c***’ after it emerged she had unfollowed her on Instagram and blasted her as a ‘nasty b***’.
In another text Rebekah suggested ‘maybe I should say something about Rosie’, referring to Coleen’s sister who died aged 14 after battling Rett Syndrome, a rare brain disorder that causes severe disabilities.
Coleen confessed: ‘I remember looking at the messages and feeling sick.
‘I couldn’t believe two women could be so nasty about women they don’t know. I just thought you are so two-faced.
‘To plan to create a story to get me to reply back is one thing but to use my sister whose passed away was just wrong.’
Coleen also detailed the stress of being sued for libel, explaining: ‘The thought of being in court scared me. I felt like the victim and I was having to defend myself for something I didn’t think was wrong.
‘It was a journey I never ever wanted to be on. A court case to me is for the public, a circus, a show for everyone else.
‘I felt ashamed that I was in this situation. A panic came over me.’
Shocking: There were messages exchanged between Rebekah and her agent Caroline Watt (pictured) that Coleen revealed made her ‘feel sick’
Tragic loss: Rebekah referenced Coleen’s sister Rosie in one message, who passed away aged 14 in 2013 following her lifelong battle with Rett syndrome (pictured in 2006)
Elsewhere in the documentary, Coleen revealed that it was after Wayne’s drink driving arrest that Rebekah Vardy started leaking stories about her to The Sun newspaper.
She was forced to reevaluate the couple’s marriage in September 2017 when the former England captain was stopped by police after leaving a nightclub with Laura Simpson.
Wayne plead guilty to drink driving and was fined £170 by the court and banned from driving for two years.
He was also ordered to complete 100 hours of unpaid work as part of a twelve-month community order.
His football club Everton fined him two weeks’ wages, which was in the region of £300,000.
Coleen, admitted her head was ‘all over the place’ after the arrest and while she was staying with her parents, she took to her private Instagram account – only followed by friends and loved ones – to share a picture with her sons that she captioned: ‘no matter where I am they always follow me, and I hope that lasts forever’.
READ MORE: Coleen breaks down in tears as she remembers late sister Rosie’s final days
After the post she was inundated with supportive messages from friends, with Rebekah also reaching out and offering up her annex for Coleen and the kids to stay in, prompting Coleen to share that she was camped out at her mother’s.
Coleen recalled: ‘I thought she was just being caring and sympathising because she’s been in the public eye as well.’
Worried that people would start ‘feeling sorry’ for her, Coleen decided to delete the post from her page, explaining: ‘I wasn’t in the state of mind for answering people and I just thought, take it down, delete it. I forgot about it and didn’t think anything else of it.’
However, the next day Coleen spotted a story in The Sun newspaper revealing she had left the marital home to stay at her mother’s.
She instantly realised that it contained information about her private Instagram post but explained she had ‘too many things going on’ to address the matter and decided to not take any action.
The TV personality then headed off to Barbados to clear her head on a family holiday with her sons, with Coleen recalling: ‘They were young and didn’t understand what was going on. Wayne was back home, we were still talking things through.
‘But he’s a good dad and while we were away it was Wayne’s birthday. So I put an Instagram post on my personal account wishing him happy birthday from the boys.’
To Coleen’s dismay the private post ended up in The Sun newspaper again, and she confessed: ‘ I was upset. I was fuming someone was passing on my private Instagram. It was the second time it had happened now so it made me think, is that the same person?
‘I was just trying to figure out why is someone doing this to me? It could be for money, it could be for press attention. I did go through and look at people but it was so hard to think who it could be.’
Struggling to narrow down the culprit, Coleen issued a warning, posting on her Stories: ‘Who’s my snitch of a follower? This is a private account.’
The warning didn’t work, however, and just a few weeks later there was another leak to The Sun after Coleen posted a snap back in her marital home with the children as they celebrated Halloween with Wayne.
The leak came at a stressful time for Coleen who admitted she ‘still wasn’t in a good place’ with Wayne but had returned to their marital home for the sake of their children.
Looking back, Wayne confessed: ‘It was a relief to finally see her back home. I want to spend the whole of my life with Coleen, to put myself in a position where I could almost throw that away is just so silly and stupid of me. It’s not what I want at all.’
Yet while she struggled to repair her marriage, Coleen was also consumed with thoughts on which one of her followers was sharing her content.
At this point Coleen realised the pattern of stories appearing in The Sun and given the newspaper’s history with the people of Liverpool, she discounted any of her Scouse friends and families being the leak.
Still faced with too many suspects, however, Coleen put up another warning post, calling out ‘the GRASS’, as she admitted: ‘I felt betrayed because it’s sly.
‘The way I was brought up and the community I lived in you don’t stab someone in the back, you don’t do that, you don’t betray people.’
Having spotted the post, Rebekah was quick to message Coleen and questioned if The Sun could have hacked her account directly, a move that left Coleen feeling ‘paranoid.’
Having confided in Wayne that a post had been leaked, he shared his advice, admitting: ‘I said to Coleen “just delete it”. Social media is not something you need.
‘She said no and that’s the way she is, quite stubborn, and that’s what I like about her she’s got her own mind and does things in her own way.’
The following summer, Wayne was offered the chance to play in the States for D.C United and so the Rooneys opted to relocate for a ‘fresh start’.
Coleen admitted she wasn’t thrilled about going, explaining: ‘It was a massive decision, especially with four children. My main thought was we need to be together as a family and if Wayne wanted to go then we needed to be there.’
Her friend admitted that when she asked Coleen if she wanted to make the move, the WAG had responded: ‘I don’t think we’ve got a choice.
‘Our marriage is still quite vulnerable, it’s still a little bit uncertain. That decision was based on if we want to save this marriage we need to go as a family.’
Feud: Coleen and Rebekah first met at the England v Wales, UEFA Euro 2016 match (pictures) as their husbands Wayne and Jamie were playing
Once living in the States, Coleen struggled with feelings of loneliness and being homesick.
Realising that his wife was struggling with the move, Wayne called his agent and told him they needed to return to the U.K.
With two years left on his contract with D.C. United, Wayne then inked a deal to return to England as a player-coach with EFL Championship side Derby County.
Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story is available to stream on Disney+
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 b***h’ 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.
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