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Home / Lifestyle

WAGatha Christie: Rebekah Vardy claims Coleen Rooney leaked stories to press herself

NZ Herald
23 Jul, 2020 11:31 PM3 mins to read

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Coleen Rooney (left) and Rebekah Vardy attending an England football game together. Photo / Getty Images

Coleen Rooney (left) and Rebekah Vardy attending an England football game together. Photo / Getty Images

A new legal document has shed light on a new development in the infamous case of "Wagatha Christie".

The saga was sparked when Coleen Rooney, wife of footballer Wayne Rooney, accused Rebekah Vardy of leaking stories about her to British tabloids.

Vardy is taking legal action against Rooney to clear her name.

According to a report by the Mail Online, Vardy has opened up about the personal anguish she has experienced since Rooney made the claim in October last year.

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Vardy, wife of footballer Jamie Vardy, says she "has been deliberately made a scape goat by the Defendant (Coleen) for past 'leaked' stories."

In addition, she says the accusations "gravely injured her reputation". According to the document, Vardy was targeted by trolls who sent death threats to her and her then-unborn child.

The document seen by Mail Online also refers to the Sun executive editor and talkRADIO host Dan Wootton, a New Zealand-born journalist who is at the centre of the Johnny Depp libel case. An article he ran referred to Depp as a "wife beater".

Wotton's talkRadio segment from October 19 last year, where he claimed no information about the Rooney's had come from "any of the Vardy's".

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"He had written about the Rooneys for many years...the defendant [Coleen Rooney] had for many years manipulated the media to tell stories about her own life," the document read.

On the day of Rooney's allegation, Vardy's name appeared over 276,000 times on Twitter and became a more popular search term on Google than Brexit, the documents claim.

Rooney publicly outed Vardy for "informing the Sun newspaper" of her "private posts and stories."

Rooney was dubbed "WAGatha Christie" after using her Instagram privacy settings to plant information about her private life to figure out who among her friends were supplying the leaks.

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This has been a burden in my life for a few years now and finally I have got to the bottom of it...... pic.twitter.com/0YqJAoXuK1

— Coleen Rooney (@ColeenRoo) October 9, 2019

She posted to her social media accounts: "I have saved and screenshotted all the original stories which clearly show just one person has viewed them.

"It's...Rebekah Vardy's account."

@ColeenRoo pic.twitter.com/VkhkkIa6nh

— Rebekah Vardy (@RebekahVardy) October 9, 2019

At the time of the post, Vardy responded saying she was "so upset" about the public accusation.

She wrote on Twitter: "I never speak to anyone about you as various journalists who have asked me to over the years can vouch for.

"I'm disgusted that I'm even having to deny this. You should have called me the first time this happened."

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