Wagatha Christie: When I put that post up I didn’t in a million years think I would be in a court case
In Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story, Rooney tells for the first time how things really happened.
The words 'It’s……… Rebekah Vardy' are etched on many minds from memes to gossip groups, news headlines and now...a documentary.
The social media scandal that erupted between WAGs Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney in 2019 — and subsequent 2022 libel case — made international headlines. Millions of words have been written on the saga. There have been plays, dramatisations, viral hashtags, even books.
But the upcoming Disney+ original series, Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story, promises to provide the definitive account. The three-part documentary series tells the inside story of the period leading up to Rooney’s internet-breaking revelation, the subsequent tabloid trial and the aftermath for all those embroiled in the case.
Rooney will discuss in detail for the first time how she went about her investigation into who was leaking her personal information to the press and how she then decided to reveal her findings to the world.
In a snippet from the documentary, she says: “When I put that post up I didn’t in a million years think I would be in a court case. I had to message her back saying ‘what the f*** is this?’ I just wanted the leaks to stop. It was so sneaky. It was cheeky.” With exclusive interviews with the amateur sleuth herself, as well as family members including her parents and husband Wayne, her legal team and others involved in the trial, many are waiting on tenterhooks for the programme’s release.
The ingredients are undeniably juicy.
Two footballers’ wives: 37-year-old Rooney, married to England’s record-scoring footballer and former Manchester United Star, Wayne Rooney; and 41-year-old Vardy, wife of Leicester City captain Jamie Vardy. Leaks on social media to The Sun newspaper.
Here’s a brief synopsis for the few among us that need a refresher. For a number of years Rooney had harboured suspicions that someone who followed her private Instagram account was leaking stories about her to the British tabloid press. To whittle down suspects and find the culprit, she decided to undertake a months-long sting operation.
Rooney planted various fake stories on her account — that she and Wayne were going to Mexico for gender selection treatment; that she was appearing on ; and that the basement of her new home had been flooded — and watched them appear in the papers. She had hidden her Stories from every account bar Vardy’s.
On October 9, 2019, Rooney took to Instagram and Twitter to publish what she had unearthed. "This has been a burden in my life for a few years now and finally I have got to the bottom of it," she wrote.
She detailed the years in which personal stories about her and her family had continuously appeared in The Sun. “It’s been tough keeping it to myself and not making any comment at all, especially when the stories have been leaked, however I had to,’ she wrote. ‘Now I know for certain which account / individual it’s come from. I have saved and screenshotted all the original stories which clearly show just one person has viewed them. It’s ……….Rebekah Vardy’s account.” Pressing 'send', Rooney unleashed a furore that even she did not predict — her posts racked up hundreds of thousands of likes, sending social media, pundits and the press into a frenzy and earning her the moniker Wagatha Christie.
In 2020, Vardy sued Rooney for defamation. The ensuing week-long court case (brought to the High Court in 2022) was closely followed across Britain: insults traded; accusations and denials; what the women wore to court; whether their husbands came with them. There were tears, recriminations, and explosive revelations about the links between Vardy, her agent Caroline Watts and tabloid journalists.
In July 2022 the High Court ruled that Rooney’s statements were “substantially true” and dismissed Vardy’s claims as “evasive or implausible”, leaving the WAG to foot an multi-million pound legal bill. The judge concluded that Vardy had most likely worked with her agent, Watts, to leak stories from Rooney’s private Instagram account to The Sun.
As one of Britain’s highest profile High Court defamation cases unfolds, the Disney+ series will reveal Rooney’s feelings before and during the trial, her discussions with Wayne and other family members, and how those closest to her felt throughout it all. It will also explore Rooney’s wider experience of living life in the spotlight for the past two decades as the wife of a famous footballer.
Rooney has revealed that she has been pursued relentlessly by paparazzi since the drama unfolded.
In his evidence to court, Wayne said that the period following the post had been “traumatic” and he’d had to watch her become “a different mother” and “a different wife”.
Julia Nottingham, the series’ executive producer, said her “jaw was on the floor” after learning of the ordeal Rooney went through. She believes the documentary will uncover a new side to the story.
“I really think the world is going to fall in love with Coleen,” she told the Edinburgh TV Festival.
On her impetus for making the programme, Rooney said to Nottingham in one of their initial meetings: “I’ve never said a word. I just want to say everything. I want it to be my words.”
“And I think we sat together for five hours, talked through everything and my jaw was on the floor.”
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